PS on Music Theory Print

Psychedelic folk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics and terminology#

Psychedelic folk generally favors acoustic instrumentation although it often incorporates other instrumentation. Chanting, early music and various non-Western folk music influences are often found in psych folk. Much like its rock counterpart, psychedelic folk is often known for a peculiar, trance-like, and atmospheric sound, often drawing on musical improvisation and Asian influences.

Acid folk#

The term acid folk was coined in late 1969 by Australian journalist Lillian Roxon to describe the music of Pearls Before Swine. In her Rock Encyclopedia, she explained: In Seasons They Change: The Story of Acid and Psychedelic Folk (2010), author Jeanette Leech states that the term “acid folk” was a “perfect summation” of the music of Pearls Before Swine and similar acts: The term was nonetheless not used widely until some time after it was coined. Tom Rapp of Pearls Before Swine commented that “acid folk as a label is fine in that it implies borderlessness.”

Psychedelic funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins: Late 1960s#

Inspired by Jimi Hendrix and psychedelic culture, the psychedelic soul group Sly and the Family Stone borrowed techniques from psychedelic rock music, including wah pedals, fuzz boxes, echo chambers, and vocal distorters. This psychedelic sound would also be reflected in the late 1960s output of iconic Detroit label Motown.

Development: 1970s–1980s#

In 1970, Hendrix released the trio album Band of Gypsys, described as “ground zero” for psychedelic funk. The Parliament-Funkadelic collective developed the sensibility, employing acid rock-oriented guitar and synthesizers into open-ended funk jams. Funkadelic’s 1971 album Maggot Brain was labeled a monument in the genre by Pitchfork. Led by George Clinton, P-Funk would shift the genre away from song-form and toward groove and texture, emphasizing the abject elements of psychedelia. The Isley Brothers and Bobby Womack would be influenced by Funkadelic and draw on this sound. During the early 1970s, the main elements of psychedelic funk were adopted as signifiers of “urban blackness” and incorporated into blaxploitation films. Jazz musician Miles Davis, newly influenced by Sly Stone and Brown, explored the genre on his 1972 album On the Corner. The group War recorded in a psychedelic funk-rock style alongside lyrics protesting racism and police brutality. The 1974 album Inspiration Information by Shuggie Otis explored psychedelic funk and soul, and despite receiving little attention upon release, it later achieved acclaim when it was reissued by the Luaka Bop label. In the late 1970s, new wave band Talking Heads explored psychedelic funk, influenced by George Clinton and P-Funk, on a trilogy of acclaimed albums. Prince drew on the style, Author Michaelangelo Matos described Prince’s 1987 track “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” as psychedelic funk, “not in the sense of Funkadelic or Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys, but in the sense that its rhythms and textures achieve a molten-lava sense without surrendering the groove.

Psychedelic music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

“Psychedelic” as an adjective is often used loosely, with many acts playing in a variety of styles. Acknowledging this, author Michael Hicks explains: A number of features are signatures of psychedelic music. Eastern instrumentation, with a particular fondness for the sitar and tabla, is common. Songs often have more disjunctive song structures, key and time signature changes, modal melodies, and drones than contemporary pop music. There is often a strong emphasis on extended instrumental segments or jams. There is a strong keyboard presence, in the 1960s especially, using electronic organs, harpsichords, or the Mellotron, an early tape-driven ‘sampler’ keyboard. Elaborate studio effects are often used, such as backwards tapes, panning the music from one side to another of the stereo track, using the “swooshing” sound of electronic phasing, long delay loops and extreme reverb. In the 1960s there was a use of electronic instruments such as early synthesizers and the theremin. Later forms of electronic psychedelia also employed repetitive computer-generated beats.

Psychedelic pop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

According to AllMusic, psychedelic pop was not too “freaky”, but also not very “bubblegum” either. It appropriated the effects associated with straight psychedelic music, applying their innovations to concise pop songs. The music was occasionally confined to the studio, but there existed more organic exceptions whose psychedelia was bright and melodic. AllMusic adds: “What’s strange is that some psychedelic pop is more interesting than average psychedelia, since it had weird, occasionally awkward blends of psychedelia and pop conventions – the Neon Philharmonic’s 1969 album The Moth Confesses is a prime example of this.”

Psychedelic rap

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Psychedelic rap is defined by “deep musicality, anchored by dusty drum breaks and samples often lifted from jazz records”, resulting in music that is “both comforting and otherworldly — both retro and Afrofuturistic”. The genre has its roots in the psychedelic rock of Jimi Hendrix, whose “hypnotic, laidback vocal style” on songs like “Crosstown Traffic” would " foreshadow the stoned swagger of a West Coast hip-hop MC", according to Tidal magazine. Psychedelic soul, such as Sly Stone, and funk, were also key influences on psychedelic rap. Parliament-Funkadelic are among hip-hop’s most sampled artists. Betty Davis was cited as another precursor to psychedelic rap, as her recordings “wove singularly freaky funkiness with proto-rap aggression”, particularly on “Shut Off the Light,” in which Davis has been described as “barking, screeching and howling in a spoken-sung style over a barbed-wire slap-bass riff”. Her ex-husband, jazz musician Miles Davis, “chased head-trip sounds through tape-splicing studio experimentation and electric chaos”, which predated sampling.

Psychedelic rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

As a musical style, psychedelic rock incorporated new electronic sound effects and recording effects, extended solos, and improvisation. Features mentioned in relation to the genre include: * electric guitars, often used with feedback, wah-wah and fuzzbox effects units; * elements of Indian music and other Eastern music, including Middle Eastern modalities; * non-Western instruments (especially in British psychedelia), specifically those originally used in Indian classical music, such as sitar, tambura and tabla; * elements of free-form jazz; * extended instrumental segments, especially guitar solos, or jams; * disjunctive song structures, occasional key and time signature changes, modal melodies and drones; * droning quality in vocals; * electronic instruments such as synthesizers and the theremin; * lyrics that made direct or indirect reference to hallucinogenic drugs; * surreal, whimsical, esoterically or literary-inspired lyrics with (especially in British psychedelia) references to childhood; * Victorian-era antiquation (exclusive to British psychedelia), drawing on items such as music boxes, music hall nostalgia and circus sounds. The term “psychedelic” was coined in 1956 by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in a letter to LSD exponent Aldous Huxley and used as an alternative descriptor for hallucinogenic drugs in the context of psychedelic psychotherapy. The New York-based folk group the Holy Modal Rounders would use the term “psychedelic” on their version of Lead Belly’s “Hesitation Blues” in 1964. In May 1965, drummer John Densmore joined guitarist Robby Krieger in a band called the Psychedelic Rangers which was formed in Los Angeles, California. The duo took LSD legally and wrote only two songs, one of them called “Paranoia”. The group was one of the earliest instances of a rock band referring to themselves as “psychedelic”. However, John Townley and David Blue formed a short-lived group of the same name that same year in New York. Townley compared the band to the Holy Modal Rounders and had also been roommates with Steve Weber. In January 1966, Texan band the 13th Floor Elevators would coin the term “psychedelic rock” on business cards which contained an image of a third eye. That same year, the band released The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators in October, which was later recognized as the earliest known use of the term “psychedelic” in an album title. This was followed by New York acts the Deep and Blues Magoos releasing Psychedelic Moods and Psychedelic Lollipop in November. As the countercultural scene developed in San Francisco, the terms acid rock and psychedelic rock were used in 1966 to describe the new drug-influenced music and were being widely used by 1967. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but acid rock may be distinguished as a more extreme variation that was heavier, louder, relied on long jams, focused more directly on LSD, and made greater use of distortion.

Psychedelic rock in Latin America

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Brazil and the Tropicalia movement#

Latin America proved a particularly fertile ground for psychedelic rock. The Brazilian psychedelic rock group Os Mutantes formed in 1966, although little known outside Brazil at the time (due to the fact that they recorded in Portuguese), they have since accrued a substantial international cult following. Os Mutantes also played a central role in the short-lived but revolutionary Brazilian aesthetic movement Tropicália, also known as ‘Tropicalismo’ (Tropicalism), an anti-authoritarian artistic reaction to the repressive military junta that seized power in Brazil in 1964. Encompassing visual art, theatre, poetry and music, Tropicália combined the popular and the avant-garde, and fused traditional Brazilian culture with foreign influences, including contemporary developments in British and American psychedelic music, and above all the music of The Beatles. As well as recording their own material, Os Mutantes collaborated with other key figures in the burgeoning Tropicalist movement, including singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil, whom they backed on Gil’s second LP. The musical manifesto of the Tropicalist movement was the landmark 1968 collaborative LP Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis (“Tropicalia: or Bread and Circuses”) which brought together the talents of Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé and Gal Costa, with arrangements by avant-garde composer-arranger Rogerio Duprat (who had studied with Pierre Boulez) and lyrical contributions from poet Torquato Neto. The album’s group cover photograph depicted the collective holding a variety of objects and images, in a deliberate reference to the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The collective also performed a number of concert “happenings” which were intended to both involve and provoke audiences, and these reportedly had a similar effect on Brazilian audiences to that experienced by folk purists who witnessed Bob Dylan’s early “electric” concerts – the performers sported long hair, wore outlandish psychedelic costumes, used electric guitars and amplification, and played at full volume. Brazil’s military junta was becoming increasingly suspicious of the anarchic anti-establishment attitudes of the Tropicalistas, who also found themselves at odds with the nationalistic student left-wing, who favoured traditional Brazilian musical forms, and rejected what they saw as the corrupting influence of Western pop music. In September 1968 Caetano Veloso gave two tumultuous performances at the third annual International Popular Song Festival in Rio, where the audience included a large contingent of left-wing students who were vehemently opposed to the Tropicalistas. When Veloso (backed by Os Mutantes) performed in the first round of the Festival’s song competition on 12 September, he was initially greeted with enthusiastic applause, but the situation soon turned ugly. Dressed in a shiny green plastic suit, festooned with wires and necklaces strung with teeth, Veloso provoked the students with his sensual movements and startling new psychedelic music. He was bombarded by insults, jeers and boos from the students, who became even more incensed when American pop singer John Dandurand made a surprise appearance during the song. The ideological conflict climaxed three days later when Veloso returned for the second round of the competition on 15 September, at which he performed a new song entitled “Prohibido a Prohibir” (“It is Forbidden to Forbid”), which was recorded live and later released as single. The students began hissing and booing as soon as Veloso’s name was announced, and when he began his performance, his overtly sexual stage moves and the experimental music of Os Mutantes provoked an outpouring of anger – the audience began booing so loudly stood that Veloso could barely be heard, and a large number then stood and turned their backs on the performers, prompting Os Mutantes to turn their backs on the audience. As the song continued, the students pelted the stage with fruit, vegetables, eggs, paper balls and anything else that came hand. Veloso stopped playing and launched into a furious monologue, in which he excoriated the students for their conservatism. After being joined by Gilberto Gil, who came on stage to show his support, Veloso finished his diatribe by telling the students “… if you are the same in politics as you are in aesthetics, we’re done for!” and declaring he was withdrawing from the competition. He then deliberately finished the song out of tune, angrily shouted “Enough!” and walked off arm-in-arm with Gil and Os Mutantes. Tropicália had a major effect on the Brazilian music scene during its brief heyday (1967–68), and the main performers made regular appearances on Brazilian stage, television and radio, but the movement was abruptly shut down in early 1969, following a provocative December 1968 TV performance which parodied the Brazilian national anthem. Gil and Veloso were both arrested in February 1969 on the orders of the military junta – they were held in prison for three months without charge or trial, and after a further four months under house arrest, they were released on condition that they leave the country, and they spent the next few years in exile in the UK. Others in the Tropicalist movement were treated even more harshly – several were arrested and tortured, or forced to undergo psychiatric ’treatment’.

Psychedelic soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

In 1967, New York band the Freak Scene used the phrase “psychedelic soul” as the title of their debut album, Psychedelic Psoul, stylized as “psoul”. However, the term “psychedelic soul” to refer to a style of music would be coined the following year in 1968. In 1972, British magazine Beat Instrumental wrote a piece on the Temptations, stating that when Dennis Edwards replaced David Ruffin in 1968, the group began branching out into “what was then christened ‘psychedelic soul’ by the media.”

Psychedelic trance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The first hippies who arrived in Goa, India (a former Portuguese colony) in the mid-1960s were drawn there for many reasons, including the beaches, the low cost of living, the friendly locals, the Indian religious and spiritual practices and the readily available Indian cannabis, which, until the mid-1970s, was legal. During the 1970s, the first Goa DJs were generally playing psychedelic rock bands such as the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and The Doors. In 1979, the beginnings of electronic dance music could occasionally be heard in Goa in the form of tracks by artists such as Kraftwerk, but it was not until 1983 that DJs Laurent and Fred Disko, closely followed by Goa Gil, began switching the Goa style over to electro-industrial/EBM which was now flooding out of Europe from artists such as Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb as well as Eurobeat. The tracks were remixed, removing the lyrics, looping the melodies and beats and generally manipulating the sounds in all manner of ways before the tracks were finally presented to the dancers as custom Goa-style mixes. By 1990–91, Goa was beginning to attract attention and had become a popular destination for partying. As the scene grew bigger, Goa-style parties spread like a diaspora all over the world from 1993. Parties like Pangaea and Megatripolis in the UK helped spawn a multitude of labels in various countries (U.K., Australia, Japan, Germany and Israel) to promote psychedelic electronic music that reflected the ethos of Goa parties, Goa music, and Goa-specific artists, producers, and DJs. Goa trance as a commercial scene began gaining global traction in 1994. The golden age of the first wave of Goa psy trance as a generally agreed upon genre was between 1994 and 1997.

Psychobilly

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The evolution of psychobilly as a genre is often described as having occurred in waves. The first wave occurred in New York City in the 1970s and reached Britain in the early 1980s, the second wave took place at the end of that decade and spread through the rest of Europe, and the third crested in the late 1990s with the genre finding international popularity.

Precursors#

The wildly theatrical shock rock aesthetic of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in the 1950s, and the outsider music of the Legendary Stardust Cowboy in the late 1960s have been cited as a precursor to what would become psychobilly. The members of the Meteors and the Cramps both cited the song “Love Me” (1960) by the Phantom as the first song in the genre.

Psydub

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The pioneers of the genre were mostly interested in the combination between ambient music and dub. The Orb can be seen as one of the first producers to combine the two genres. Several tracks on their first album “The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld”, released in 1991, already sound a lot like contemporary Psydub. Psydub developed further by the influence of Psytrance. Psytrance producers have always had a keen interest in all kinds of music and a few of them have produced tracks that have big Dub influences. produced in 1994 and released on triple vinyl in 1998 by Bustin’ Loose Recordings, who were two of the first acts to produce psybient music.