Speechless @ALFAMA, an incredible record that forcefully takes its place at the top of the #buzz sound exhibition as a unique episode in the history of the most experimental acid rock music of the sixties. Blessed are those who lived on the West Coast during those years. Blessed are those who live there even now.

Friendsound - Joyride (RCA, 1969)

This album is yet another "unicum" in the history of California's psychedelic music from the West Coast. Friendsound was a group founded by Drake Levin, born in Chicago but effectively settled in Los Angeles by the mid-sixties (he played with, among others, the Brotherhood, Cosmic Travelers, and the better-known Paul Revere & The Raiders). "Joyride" is the only LP by Friendsound released on RCA in 1969. Assignable to the psychedelic or progressive rock genre, the record is actually a masterpiece of avant-garde and musique concrète. The album is particularly experimental, and the recording sessions involved an incredible number of musicians. None of the tracks on the album are in any way conventional. "Joyride" is as if two songs are layered on top of each other: in the background, there is an acid blues rock, but over it are superimposed flute sounds and experimental progressive suggestions; "Childhood's End" is a piece of acid instrumental psychedelia playing over a pre-recorded track that is made to sound at an accelerated pace; "Love Sketch" is perhaps the most conventional track, a guitar arpeggio accompanied by evocative arrangements creating sound expansions and reverberations that fill the space, creating continuous sound waves in succession; "Childsong" overlays the sounds of two groups of children playing, recorded at two different moments, upon which derivative sound sensations from Tibetan music and New Age experiences are superimposed; "Lost Angel Proper St." once again revisits the concept of two overlapping tracks: the acid blues rock is literally submerged in underwater atmospheres, nighttime jazz, and urban sounds; "The Empire Of Light" is an example of minimalist music and concrete music, and a kind of exercise in reproducing the echo of sound reverberations. An album that is the result of combinations that are not random and could only have been conceived by a visionary mind. The final sensation after listening is what I would define as "gratitude."

Friendsound - Joyride

#musiqueconcrète #avanguardia #psichedelia