Hunger - Strictly From Hunger (1969)

From: USA
Genre: psychedelic rock, hard rock
Year: 1969
Label: Afterglow
Review: Originally from Portland, OR, Hunger! moved to Los Angeles in the late '60s and became a minor entry in that city's psychedelic/hard rock scene, releasing a low-selling album in late 1968 that is sought after by psychedelic collectors. Hunger! (with an exclamation point) were on the cusp of psychedelic rock's transition to hard rock, especially via some martial tempos and a heavy, sometimes shrieking organ sound. Most of the material on the album was so-so heavy psychedelic rock, albeit with sadder melodies and a more ominous overtone than most such stuff. It was best when the tracks minimized the heaviness in favor of stronger songwriting. By Richie Unterberger.

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Peter Mergener & Michael Weisser - Phancyful-Fire (1985)

Country: Germany
Genre: analog electronic, space, new age, meditative
Year: 1985
Label: Innovative Communication
Review: Michael Weisser is the lone constant in the Software team. Peter Mergener is his most frequent partner in that musical venture. Mergener and Weisser also create music as a duo. Phancyful-fire is one of those collaborations. It starts out strong; the title track is the first and easily the strongest piece. It has nice atmospheres and dense sequences. The second track has a strong hook, less atmosphere, and too many sequences. The tracks just hop around from there. This is one of the most uneven CDs ever; the strengths are bold and daring, but the weaknesses are simple dreck. By Jim Brenholts.

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Peter Mergener & Michael Weisser - Beam-Scape (1984)

Country: Germany
Genre: analog electronic, space, new age, meditative
Year: 1984
Label: Innovative Communication
Review: Beam-Scape is the first CD by Peter Mergener and Michael Weisser recorded outside the Software umbrella. It is not an objectionable disc, nor is it an exceptional disc. There are some interesting moments, but, for the most part, this sounds exactly the same as everything that Weisser has done. It is simple, formulaic Berlin school electronica. By Jim Brenholts.

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Alexis Le-Tan & Jess - Space Oddities: А Compilation Of Rare European Library Grooves From 1975-1984

Country: Germany
Genre: library music, cosmic, psychedelic, electronic
Year: 2008
Label: Permanent Vacation
Review: Continuing in their quest to deliver quality and obscure sought after music, Permanent Vacation go deeper than ever with their latest and new endeavour: “Space Oddities” A compilation of rare European library grooves from 1975-1984. Put together by Alexis Le-Tan and Jess, two obsessive French DJ’s, crate diggers and collectors; it is the fruit of many years of research, time, luck, passion and love. Searching the music library archives, the have dived into a world of spacey, cosmic, funky and freaky ... Read More »disco. Library music, mood music, source music or the French term musique d’illustration sonore, was produced from the early 50s by know and unknown composers and talented session musicians.

These records were never commercially available; you had to subscribe to the labels in order to get them. Used mainly in films, TV series or commercials they covered every genres, types of songs, atmospheres, and sound effects. Producers, beat dealers and discerning DJs have been hunting down these records for many years and using them as secret weapons. Alexis Le-Tan (music journalist and member of the Tigersushi Bass System) and Jess (formerly from the famed French house duo Jess & Crabbe and now drummer for punk band 10lec6) met in 2001 through a mutual love of no-wave and leftfield disco. In 2003 Jess came upon a big collection of Library music, which he bought for next to nothing. Whilst he was spending much time ciphering through it and finding the interesting bits, Alexis was digging in all things Cosmic, where along the way, he also started to pick up many bits and pieces from unheard of Library record labels. Inspired by Anti N.Y., Teutonik Disaster, NY noise, Disco not Disco compilations on labels like Gomma, Soul Jazz and Strut and with the current explosion of the nudisco-balearic-cosmic scene, the pair thought it would be appropriate to put together a collection of spacey, cosmic, funky and freaky disco focused tracks from their library discoveries, and reveal their best kept secrets to a wider audience.

Unlike many of these unlicensed/illegal bootlegs and edit records that have been sprouting out from everywhere in the last few years, they took the time and effort to hunt down all the composers or label owners who had the rights for the tracks, in order to license them properly and give credit where it is due. This was not an easy task as you can imagine but it was rewarding and worth the hunt as they hope to be doing more of this in the future. The artwork was done by close friends Check Morris and is a contemporary take on what an old Library record could have looked like today. They even went so far as to include a little description, as it was done back in the days, of each track. A booklet will be included in the CD, which contains original illustrations and extensive sleeve notes and for the vinyl lovers there will be a mini LP with the most dancefloor orientated cuts. (c)

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Astra - The Weirding (2009)

Country: USA
Genre: progressive rock, space rock, stoner rock, psychedelic rock
Year: 2009
Label: Rise Above Records
Myspace
Review: Astra are a band in love with the ‘70s, and they seem pretty unapologetic about it. They get right to it on The Weirding, their debut album. “The Rising of the Black Sun” is a five-minute, forty-five-second instrumental that sets the stage for the rest of this sprawling, 79-minute disc. Starting with tinkling bells, fluttering flutes, and spare guitar and keyboard notes, the song eventually blossoms into a driving proto-metal guitar duet that recalls Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. From there the band slides right into the title track, all 15 minutes of it. More flute and cymbal-heavy drumming accompany vocals that sing about well, a world’s end scenario, “the weirding of the wicked world”. This track, like most of the others on the album, is heavy on guitars and analog synthesizers. At some points in “The Weirding”, the guitars and synths combine to sound remarkably like The Mars Volta’s guitar-saxophone doubling technique, but that may be the only nod, intentional or not, to the present.

Astra end up with a middling first album. The engineering on The Weirding isn’t stellar, but that’s not the problem. The disc sounds like it was recorded in a garage, which it probably was, but that sort of adds to the whole ‘70s atmosphere of the music. Clearly the band is doing exactly what they want, but what they really need next time out is a producer who can step in and convince them that some songs might turn out better if they were 10 minutes long instead of 15. Some gentle editing might have done a lot to help The Weirding‘s overall quality level. By Chris Conaton.

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The Chocolate Watchband - No Way Out (1967)

Country: USA
Genre: psychedelic rock, garage rock
Year: 1967
Label: Sundazed
Review: 1967 was supposed to be the year the Chocolate Watchband finally made it big. They had spent the last couple of years gradually climbing their way to the top of San Francisco's R&B scene. They had paid their dues and put in their work; now it was time for things to pay off. By the end of 1966, their raw, raucous, Rolling Stones-y sound had landed them gigs alongside Jefferson Airplane and Captain Beefheart. They had released their first two singles—and they were both hits. The Chocolate Watchband was on the radio. They were in the movies. They had a wealth of talent. And they had a catalog of proven material. All that was left to do was lay it down on their first full-length record. And so, in the new year, that's exactly what they set out to do.

But things didn't exactly go as planned. In fact, it was a complete disaster from start to finish. The thing is though, listening to No Way Out you'd never guess it. The LP is one of the finest examples of British Invasion-influenced garage rock, one of the few American releases that can stand up to the early Kinks or Rolling Stones. The standout tracks, "Let's Talk About Girls" and "Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-in)", are exceptional—and both would later earn their way onto the famed Nuggets box-set. The cover of Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" (complete with a guest appearance by Wolfman Jack) nearly rivals the original. A couple of psychedelic instrumentals give the album more depth and variety than you'd expect from a straight-up R&B group. Even in 1967, maybe the greatest year in music history, No Way Out stands out as one of the better records released. It's everything the band could have hoped for, just the kind of record that could take them from being local heroes to international stars. By Adam Bunch.

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The Black Angels - Passover (2006)

From: USA
Genre: psychedelic rock
Year: 2006
Label: Light in the Attic
Myspace
Review: Walking in the shadows cast by Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized mastermind Jason Pierce is a dangerous pastime. Narcotic space rockers who admire that cantankerous icon often risk sounding like they're wandering aimlessly in the celestial realm or hiding behind walls of droning guitars and forsaking structure and melody. However, along with their peers in the Warlocks and Black Mountain, Austin's Black Angels have avoided those pitfalls and made a stunning record that will undoubtedly top a zillion "best of" lists at the end of 2006. Their self-titled debut EP (also on LITA) was acclaimed upon its release last year, and though this proper full-length features three of the four songs appearing on The Black Angels, hearing them stretch out fully and utilize thoughtful sequencing makes for an even more satisfying listen.

Working with a solid flooring of Stephanie Bailey's creative, purposeful percussion, and elevating majestically via Nate Ryan's crystalline, acrobatic guitar playing, the quintet breaks new ground for sensual, neopsychedelia, alternating adroitly between Velvet Underground–like dirges ("Bloodhounds on My Trail"), acid-soaked spirals of colorful pop ("Manipulation"), and menacing dirges that recall 13th Floor Elevators' most lucid moments ("The First Vietnamese War"). Vocalist Alex Maas sounds like a clearer-throated version of Clinic frontman Ade Blackburn, and drone dame Jennifer Raines unfurls enough blood-curdling organ to disturb a mortician. Black Angels close things on a simple, somber note with a hidden track featuring Maas singing alone with only a tautly strummed guitar, offering solace to a dead Iraqi soldier's mother. By Hannah Levin.

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Aqua Nebula Oscillator - s/t (2008)

Country: France
Genre: psychedelic rock, space rock
Year: 2008
Label: Pan European Records
Myspace
Review: Aqua Nebula Oscillator redefines 69 Punk Psychedelic music. They play powerful music with voodoo rythms, space oscillations, wild fuzz echo guitar, indian sitar, organ, fuzz bass, 3 vocals with savage female vocals. They can play five minutes wild shock'n'roll song and also go into 25 minutes of "blow your mind" improvisation. On stage, they play with a psych Hypnotic light show behind them, and off stage they travel Europe in an old black and gold gravedigger van. They play only on really old valve echo equipment (as Pink Floyd). Their music is a space trip with no limit,they can play baroque melody mixed with Tribal Transe Rythm and ufo space sound with medieval voices. Its not a kind of music,Its a way of living!
David Os is the guru of Aqua Nebula Oscillator and since his invention of the psychedelic Experience, the band has changed members 3 times members. Now, Vince,Simon and Shazzula joined the band definitively! (c)

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Space Box: 1970 Beyond (Space, Krautrock & Acid Trips)

Country: USA
Genre: space rock, krautrock, prog rock, psychedelic, acid, ambient, electronic
Year: 1996
Label: Cleopatra
Review: It is the history of analog space rock. This 3-CD box set include 36 tracks of classic bands: Amon Düül, Cluster, Guru Guru, Hawkwind, Faust and others. There are many rare and unknown groups. Music: space, kraut, progressive, acid, psychedelic, hard rock, art rock, electronic, ambient, drone, techno and more. Enjoy.

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Alain Goraguer - La Planète Sauvage (1973)

Country: France
Genre: soundtrack, space jazz rock, psychedelic
Year: 1973
Label: Pathé Marconi EMI
Review: La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet) is an animated 1973 science fiction film directed by René Laloux. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and has been distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. It won the special jury prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. The story is based on the novel Oms en Série, by the French writer Stefan Wul.

It is the best surrealistic psychedelic animation i've ever seen. This OST is fantastic.

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Man Or Astro-man? - 1000x (1997)

From: USA
Genre: space rock, futuristic surf, post punk
Year: 1997
Label: One Louder
Myspace
Review: I think this EP bacame a new stage of group evolution. Previous releases was a mystical cosmic surf with sci-fi atmosphere. Here band exceeded the limits of standart surf music and started to experiment: more samples, more electronic sounds (this guys liked to use a good analog synthesizers and percussions), more psychedelia, more post-punk (yea, "Specify Gravity", "Universe City" and "With Automatic Shutoff" with Star Crunch's vocal are perfect post punk). I like this record, this chemical experience.

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John Woo - Woodoo (2001)

Country: Italy
Genre: garage, psychedelic surf, gonzo
Year: 2001
Label: Fog Records
Myspace
Review: JOHN WOO, frantic gun cotton punk. A 44 magnum shot directly to the brain. Uncovered nerv bioconnect with american 1967 garage. Spaghetti western soundtracks shooted on the moon. BOOM BOMM. Which music do the martian surfers listen? The MISFITS? The DEAD KENNEDYS? The JOHNWOO? Everybody knows Duane Eddy was of greek origins, but who knows that the surf music was originally inspired from the folk tunes of the Nabuk planet? BANG. The musical pills of the Johnwoo. Zen for your ears. Punk-zen. My god! Explosions sent back to an infinite movieolae that starts in the Venice highway and ends up there, among the stars. Among toxic cats and mutant dogs. Zombie brains and drunk aliens. DEVO-lution. Comodore 64. Highway 61. The 69 position. Rock'n'roll never an end in itself. ELVIS. But now we are talkin' about divinity. And about anphetamines. VELOCITY VELOCITY VELOCITY. Slow-motions guns like the drumsticks of a Trixon '60es drumset, that hit the drumheads quickly and roaring. TUM-CIAK STA-TA-TUM. And the SBRAAAANG of an Eko guitar stolen from agents behind the Iron Curtain. And the Precision bass instills an apparent calm into you, the Meazzi keyboard rend you with its PUNK-WAVE razor-cuts. BZZ BZZ. The broadcast is very noisy now. Few minutes left. Aliens are closer now. The JOHNWOO will play for them. In some minutes you'll realize it...AHAHAHAH!!!
(c)from myspace

I don't know nothing about this guys expect that they from Italy and they play amazing music. It is very very wild and crazy record. The John Woo will make you kindle a fire in your home, perform pogo-shaman dance all night and worship new space God of rock'n'roll.

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The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge (1983)

From: UK
Genre: post punk, dream pop
Year: 1983
Label: Statik Records
Review: The Chameleons formed in Middleton, in Greater Manchester, England in 1981. They consisted of singer and bassist Mark Burgess, guitarist Reg Smithies, guitarist Dave Fielding, and drummer John Lever (replacing original drummer Brian Schofield).

Through Mark Burgess' vocals and dark and ironic lyrics, their songs often dealt with personal themes of childlike innocence and a reverence for nostalgia. Musically, perhaps most notable in their work was the band's innovative and distinctive use of dual guitar melodies, courtesy of Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding, as opposed to the traditional rhythm-and-lead guitarist format prevalent in rock music even to this day. These arrangements were often characterized by the use of delay and chorus effects. Dave played a melodic and atmospheric guitar while Reg played a more traditional riff-based guitar.

Script Of The Bridge - debut album by The Chameleons. This record is very melancholy, dark, gloomy with the fantastic and atmospheric melodics. It is perfect autumn music, times of gloom, rains and ... death.

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Timebox - The Deram Anthology (1998)

From: UK
Genre: psychedelic pop, mod, soul
Year: 1998
Label: Deram
Review: Timebox was formed in 1966 in Southport (UK) by Mike Patto and Ollie Halsall. But keyboard player 'Professor' Chris Holmes left the group in 1970 and he remaining members continued under the name Patto (they played a progressive jazz rock).

Retrospective of the finest recordings for the Deram label 1967-69 by this British psychedelic quintet with a penchant for a psychedelic pop sound with element of soul. While they first recorded on the Picadilly label, their best stuff is generally considered their output for Deram, which includes the singles 'Walking Through The Streets Of My Mind', a cover of the Four Seasons' 'Beggin'', 'Gone Is The Sad Man', 'Poor Little Heartbreaker' and 'Yellow Van'.

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Teenage Filmstars - Star (1992)

From: UK
Genre: experimental, shoegazing, psychedelic rock
Year: 1992
Label: Creation Records
Myspace
Review: Teenage Filmstars are an English, post punk, independent, psychedelic 1980s-90s band, formed in 1979 by Edward Ball, Daniel Treacy and Joseph Foster. The band segued into The Times in 1980 and reappeared twelve years later with the album 'Lift Off Mit Der Teenage Filmstars' (AKA 'Star' 1992) on Creation Records. Partly bearing witness to My Bloody Valentine's release 'Loveless' from the previous year, the forthcoming progressive 90's psychedelia and Ball's own troubled vision of popular music, it prompted Kevin Shields to remark of Ball in 1995, "A sensitive soul from another planet. A modernist musical alchemist - where other people struggle Ed plays what we're thinking." (c)wiki

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Man Or Astro-man? - Your Weight On The Moon (1994)

From: USA
Genre: futuristic surf, space rock
Year: 1994
Label: One Louder
Myspace
Review: As part of the surf revival movement of the early '90s, Auburn's Man or Astro-man? specializes in a slightly different variation on the genre, self-described as space-age surf. Formed in 1992, the quartet originally consisted of members who went by such off the wall aliases as Birdstuff (drums), Star Crunch (guitar), Dr. Delecto & his Invisible Vaportron (bass), and Electronic Monkey Wizard (on something called alternate-universe bass), Man or Astro-man? combined the classic surf sounds of the '60s along with the quirky humor and approach of such groundbreaking groups as Devo. (c) allmusic

"Your Weight On The Moon" - first band's EP. I like it, because I begun to listen MOAM after this record. It is atmospheric dark sci-fi futuristic surf music and good example of early works of Man Or Astro-man?.

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Zodiac - Cosmic Sounds (1967)

From: USA
Genre: psychedelic rock
Year: 1967
Label: Elektra Records
Review: Divided into 12 separate tracks, one for each astrological sign, it appeared just as both psychedelic rock and astrology itself were coming into vogue in the youthful counterculture. In some respects it was similar to other instrumental psychsploitation albums of the time, with a spacy yet tight groove that could have fit into the soundtrack of 1966 Sunset Strip documentaries, played in large measure by seasoned Los Angeles session musicians. In other respects, it was futuristic, embellished by some of the first Moog synthesizer ever heard on a commercial recording, an assortment of exotic percussive instruments, and sitar. The arrangements were further decorated by haunting harpsichord and organ, along with standard mid-1960s Los Angeles rock guitar licks. For those who took the astrology as seriously as the music, there was the dramatic reading of narrator Cyrus Faryar, musing upon aspects of each astrological sign in a rich, deep voice without a hint of irony.
(с) Richie Unterberger

The album was released in late 1967. The sleeve, by artist Abe Gurvin and art director William S. Harvey, featured a florid psychedelic design. On the back, in large purple letters, were written the instructions: "Must be played in the dark".

Tracks:
01 Aries - The Fire-Fighter
02 Taurus - The Voluptuary
03 Gemini - The Cool Eye
04 Cancer - The Moon Child
05 Leo - The Lord Of Lights
06 Virgo - The Perpetual Perfectionist
07 Libra - The Flower Child
08 Scorpio - The Passionate Hero
09 Sagittarius - The Versatile Daredevil
10 Capricorn - The Uncapricious Climber
11 Aquarius - The Lover Of Life
12 Pisces - The Peace Piper

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