The Smoke (US): S/T (1968)

After the talented songwriter/vocalist Michael Lloyd left the fabled psych-pop outfit the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band in 1967, he soon formed another group called October Country. Mostly a solo project, they released a few singles and one LP on the Epic label in late '67/ early '68 to little fanfare. He continued on however, signing to Sidewalk records and forming a new "group" (still basically just a Lloyd solo project) called the Smoke. The Smoke released one very nice Soft-psychedelic LP in 1968 that went nowhere commercially and has since remained forgotten, and it still hasn't been given a proper reissue, which is a shame because its a nice album.

Most of the songs on this album are in the lite-psych/soft pop vein, baring a pretty strong Beatles influence at times and also shares some similar qualities to other then popular LA avant-pop acts like Harpers Bizarre and Van Dyke Parks. The production and arrangements are very well done, done by mostly Lloyd who at the time was only about 20 years old. Lloyd's vocals are pretty great throughout, a great breathy high tenor that cuts through the mix nicely. At times the album plays like an uptempo psych-pop/rocker with tracks like "Gold Is the Color Of Thought", "Fogbound" and "October Country", with plentiful vocal harmonies, sparkly guitars and blasts of hammond and farfisa organ. At other times the album can be sparse and introspective (Songs like "Self Analysis", "Umbrella" and "Looking Through the Mirror"). And also by employing the use of strings and interludes to divvy up some of the tracks in a very Van Dyke Parks-esque way, you can tell he's aiming for a Song Cycle type feel in certain places, especially in the opening track, "Cowboys and Indians", an episodic piece about the expansion of the American West, driven by a descending "Lucifer Sam"-esque guitar riff and crashing drums and "Odyssey", the closing track featuring heavy use of an electric harpsichord (probably a Roxichord) and a great brass arrangement. Although the results aren't quite up to the standards of Parks' monumental debut album, the results are still great throughout the record.

Unfortunately, the album didn't stand a chance, given that it was on a no-name label and there was zero promotion to speak of. The Original LP is very hard to track down, and it hasn't been legitimately re-issued on CD, although it has been bootlegged by several small collectors' labels. 

Highlights: Gold Is the Color of Thought, Odyssey, Umbrella, Cowboys and Indians. 

While we patiently await the release of this album in a legitimate re-issue format, you can listen to my copy of Acid Ray's CD bootleg copy that I tracked down at a record store a few years ago. Ripped in EAC at 320 vbr by yours truly: http://www.mediafire.com/?ainw0r55whzp5s5

-Casey (twitter.com/thewayKPSU)