The Way Podcast: 6/28/2012; British Psychedelic Pop Sampler

On tonight's episode of my weekly one hour podcast The Way, I explored the catalogs of my 4 favorite British Psychedelic Pop artists, fairy-tale folk rockers Kaleidoscope, acid-popsters July, the Bill Wyman produced The End, and the soaring, orchestral prog of The Moody Blues. I love the whimsical nature of the Brit's take on psychedelia and wanted to create a nice showcase to display some of my favorite English-Psych tunes. The link to the stream is below, Enjoy!

https://s3.amazonaws.com/archive-complete/1340928001.mp3

Interview With Now Sound Records' Steve Stanley On "The Way", June 21st 2012

Today I interviewed Steve Stanley, the founder of Now Sounds Records on the podcast incarnation of The Way, on KPSU, Portland's College Radio. Now Sounds Records have reissued some of my favorite psych/sunshine pop records ever in the last few years including MONO re-issues of the first four Association albums and the first two Harpers Bizarre albums, as well as the Critter's Project 3 recordings and the Parade's lost album. Steve was a great guest and we talked all things Harpers Bizarre, Association, Brewer & Shipley, Mono vs. Stereo, and even some Enoch Light talk. Big thanks to Steve Stanley for taking his time to join me.

Listen to the interview here, it starts at just about the 7:00 minute mark:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/archive-complete/1340323201.mp3

Tony Mottola: Warm, Wild & Wonderful (1968) Original Project 3 Quadraphonic Vinyl Transfer (Stereo Reproduction)

Enoch Light's go-to guitarist for nearly all of his studio work, Tony Mottola released several instrumental albums of his own on Light's Command and Project 3 labels, but none better than his 1968 Project 3 release Warm, Wild & Wonderful. Although Mottola did not often write material of his own, the cover song selections here are fantastic and perfectly suited to Mottola's silky smooth jazz playing. The material chosen here ranges from the adult pop of Bacharach and also brilliant covers of label-mates the Free Design (in fact, Free Design leader Chris Dedrick helped arrange several of the songs on this record and background vox are performed by his bandmates). Highlights are the fantastic renditions of the classic Bacharach tunes "This Guy's In Love With You", and the Warwick hit "Do You Know The Way To San Jose". Mottola's carefully and precisely played guitar mimic the song's vocal melodies and Enoch Light adds the perfect soft, orchestral touches to the jazzy guitar playing. But the standout track has to be his take on Dedrick's "Kites Are Fun", a Free Design classic that Mottola turns in to an even blissful and breezier tune than the original. Wondeful stuff.

This rip is from the 1973 Quadraphonic re-release that Project 3 issued in response to the new Quadraphonic phase, that infamously fizzled within a matter of years. This Quad release is also compatible with regular stereo sets, and in comparison to the original stereo mix samples I've heard there isn't a whole lot of difference that I can hear besides maybe an enhancement in clarity. The rip is flat transferred from the '73 release to .mp3 @ 320vbr using EAC's .WAV editor and compressed using dbpoweramp and LAME 3.97. Enjoy: http://www.mediafire.com/?mg5qclzhd572lhr

-Casey

Enoch Light & The Light Brigade: Spaced Out (1969) Original Project 3 Vinyl Transfer

The last of my Enoch Light themed posts, this album is perhaps Light's most notorious, but also his most celebrated work. Enoch Light & The Light Brigade take their sound innovations up out of the stratosphere with tripped out interpretations of Bach, the Beatles and Burt Bacharach songs featuring Enoch's favorite new toy, the Moog Synthesizer. And just when you thought it couldn't get any cooler, the Free Design do all the background vocals. Here's an entertaining liner note excerpt from the back cover:

"In this new album, Enoch Light explores the new age of Supersound. You will hear all of today's musical and electro-musical discoveries that have sky-rocketed stereo into a new, exciting dynamic direction: Far out and Light years away.


This "Spaced Out" record spearheads the entire sound spectrum. With side trips into some turned-on tonal zones. Like the mind-bending Moog, electric harpischords and flipped out flugelhorns.


The songs we recorded are all established hits covering a period of more than 250 years: From Bach to Bacharach and the Beatles.


We believe you'll enjoy the hip harmonics we adapted for these familiar melodies; then recorded with the most advanced electronic instruments.


The result, we think, is a total in-put of spectacular stereo reproduction.


Lift Off!"


Ripped from my original vinyl LP using EAC's .WAV editor and compressed to .mp3 @ 320vbr with dbpoweramp and LAME 3.97. Enjoy: http://www.mediafire.com/?o4jc7khi6558w4i

-Casey

The Free Design - Heaven/Earth (1969) Original Project 3 White Label Promo Vinyl Transfer

They were dream pop and twee 20 years before the terms even existed. The masters of soft-pop, this East Coast family foursome, made up of siblings Chris, Bruce, Ellen and Sandy Dedrick, has gained a well deserved cult following 40 years after their brief lifetime. Their light-as-air vocal harmonies and jazz-pop arrangements were too complex for teens, but too sugary and innocent for adults, and thus, the Free Design never found the success they deserved. Other reasons also were a factor, namely their producer Enoch Light and his Project 3 label's confusion on how to promote a young, self-contained vocal group, as opposed to the label's usual output of instrumental and easy listening records which were aimed squarely at adults and audiophiles. It's unclear to me whether this record was recorded on the 35mm film that Enoch had started to use some years prior to the recording of this album. I know that the first two Free Design LPs, Kites Are Fun (1967), and You Could Be Born Again (1968), were indeed recorded on 35mm film as indicated on the album cover, like all Project 3 LPs were back then. But on this record, their third for Project 3, 1969's Heaven/Earth, there is no mention of the recording process or what kind of tape or film was used for the master recording and I know that he eventually did stop using 35mm film because of it's high price tag.

Regardless, this is their best album by a long shot. This record found the group easing away from the child-like themes of the earlier albums (kites, umbrellas, little brothers...), and on to more adult themes like the music business, romance and self-discovery. The haunting arrangements by principle songwriter Chris Dedrick are the best he would ever conceive and the male-female vocal interplay among the group is as sharp as ever. The covers here are the most mature the group would attempt, covering standards like Gershwin's "Summertime", as opposed to their earlier records where they covered contemporary pop acts like Simon & Garfunkel, and the Turtles. Dedrick's originals steal the show though, with masterpieces of jazzy sunshine-pop like "My Very Own Angel", the bitingly cynical "2002 - A Hit Song", and the absolutely beautiful and haunting choral piece "Dorian Benediction" on which Enoch Light's session musicians lay down some of their best jazzy touches over the group's, reverb drenched, cathedral-like vocal parts. Enoch Light's production is absolutely wonderful and spacious, and he gets great help from Command/Project 3 staple Tony Mottola and awesome engineering from the brilliant Phil Ramone. Fantastic record.

This album is only available for a very limited time on this blog because this record is currently in print. Light In the Attic, a Seattle-based re-issue label has released all the Free Design's albums on nice sounding CDs. Use this rip as a preview and buy the reissue for yourself on Amazon, or go the extra mile like I did and find an old, vintage used copy of an original LP, which this rip is sourced from. Flat transferred from an original promotional vinyl copy using EAC's .WAV editor and compressed to 320vbr .mp3 using dbpoweramp and LAME 3.97. Enjoy and grab it while you can, cause it'll be gone soon:

EDIT 5/30/2012: As of May 30th, this LP rip is no longer available to download because it is still in print in CD format, issued by Light In The Attic records. See the amazon.com link above to order a copy!

-Casey

Enoch Light Presents: Patterns In Sound Volumes 1 & 2 (1966, 1967); Original Project 3 LP Transfers

As I've been on a massive Enoch Light kick recently, I decided to post a special two-fer of Light LPs. 1966 found Enoch Light heading a new label, Project 3, after his Command Records label had been bought and sold by ABC-Paramount in '65 or early '66 (I believe). As discussed in previous posts, Light had recently began experimenting with the use of master recording his records on 35mm film rather than tape to achieve maximum sound quality, or as Light called it, "total sound". He had released an LP of film themes and scores as early as 1962 that were mastered on 35mm film. He continued his experiment on Project 3, by producing a slew of records featuring his usual line up of "All-Star" session musicians and orchestral accompaniment, one of the most prolific periods of Lights recording career. By end of year 1966, Light had enough material released on his still brand new label that he began to compile what he considered to be the label's best material, and the best examples of "total sound". The result was Patterns In Sound: An Emotional Experience In Musical Communication, a series of compilations that would eventually reach nine volumes in total. Presented here are the first two, which were probably the most commercially successful of the series, although they did not chart.

The music here is typical Enoch Light, cinematic, bold, swinging and sweeping, as the first track on Volume 1 sets the stage for whats to come perfectly with a rousing take on "April In Portugal", with propulsive strings and and crisp, clear bongo rolls. The sound quality, as expected, is fantastic throughout both volumes, Enoch Light fans will certainly enjoy these records. Note: I removed two tracks (5 and 6) from Volume 1 by the Kissin' Cousins because they are already included on my earlier post here: http://caseysway.blogspot.com/2012/05/enoch-light-presents-kissin-cousins.html

These LPs were flat transferred to .mp3 @ 320vbr by using EAC's .WAV editor and compressed with dbpoweramp using LAME 3.97. Enjoy:

Vol.1: http://depositfiles.com/files/ocdv0c0sx

Vol 2: http://depositfiles.com/files/gz8l5spxe

-Casey

The Mystic Moods Orchestra: Mexican Trip (1967) Original Phillips Records Stereo Vinyl Transfer

Another fun Easy Listening record, this time from audiophile and found-sound innovator Brad Miller (not to be confused with the former NBA center of course...). A couple years before this record had come out, Miller and the Mystic Moods released an album called One Stormy Night a mostly instrumental album with orchestral covers of jazz tunes mixed with sounds of real rain and thunderstorms that Miller had recorded himself with primitive portable recording equipment. For the time it was quite innovative in terms of it's concept and ended up selling surprisingly well.

In 1967 the Mystic Moods Orchestra released their 3rd found-sound infused Easy Listening record, with the theme of the record being the sounds of Mexican beaches, villages and town squares, all mixed in with a Latin-esque orchestral pop sound ala Herb Alpert. Gorgeous strings, luxuriant flamenco guitars, mariachi trumpets setting the stage a midst a backdrop of the sounds of crashing waves and the bustle of Mexican city life indeed make this an easy, and fun, listen. The material here is a mix between traditional Mexican music and Mystic Moods originals, written by the Orchestra's conductor and arranger Don Ralke. Is it a bit cheeseball at times? You bet your ass it is. But it's a fun concept, and immaculately arranged and performed. A must have for fans of the Mystic Moods material and the A&M Latin pop acts like Alpert and the Baja Marimba Band.

This vinyl rip was flat transferred to .mp3 @ 320 vbr using EAC's .WAV editor and compressed using dbpoweramp and LAME 3.97. Enjoy: http://www.mediafire.com/?bm8y39aux1d6fe5

-Casey