Fundamental Works #buzz

This one was missing for me @ALFAMA. The perfect complement to "The United States of America."

Joe Byrd and The Field Hippies - The American Metaphysical Circus (Columbia Masterworks, 1969)

Joseph Hunter Byrd Jr. only needed two albums to write a significant part of the history of psychedelic rock music in the United States of America. A true precursor and an enlightened mind, Joseph was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up in Tucson, Arizona. He studied at Sanford where he met La Monte Young, then at Berkeley with Terry Riley and Steve Reich. In 1960 he was in New York studying with Morton Feldman and John Cage, mingling with Charlotte Moorman, Yoko Ono, Jackson Mac Low, Virgil Thomson, and especially Dorothy Moskowitz, who would become his partner. When Joseph returned to the West Coast, she was the vocalist of the United States of America (1967-1968), Byrd's first band and one of the fundamental groups in the history of psychedelic music, where he expressed his radical ideas and visions both musically and conceptually and politically (he was a member of the communist party). In 1969, he released his second album with the Field Hippies: "The American Metaphysical Circus." Ideally divided into four parts, the album is, in fact, a true work of art in which Byrd experiments with the use of voice and is openly inspired by certain effects from the legendary George Martin (see for example "Kalyani" or "Patriot's Lullabye", "Moonsong: Pelog", but also "Gospel Music"). The rest is a decidedly acid album with peculiarities like the visionary ragtime of "Mister 4th of July" or "Moonsong: Pelog," which rivals some of Nico's songs from the other side of the USA. Here too, there are politically themed contents, the most obvious being "Invisible Man," a tribute - let's say - to President Lyndon Johnson. A masterpiece.

#psychedelia #joebyrd #theunitedstatesofamerica

Joe Byrd And the Field Hippies (Usa, 1969) - The American Metaph