From Wah-Wah discos out of Spain's last batch of Rare Psych' and Prog' records, comes this deluxe reissue of cult exploito record by The Unfolding... which (or whom!) I had heard a song : "Play Your Game" on obscure Psychedelic Garage comp' "Echoes in Time" back in the late 1980s, and first heard an excerpt ("Prana") as a bonus cut on the number one compilation of that later termed "Acid-Punk" sub-genre : "The Acid Gallery"; vol.3 of the legendary Pebbles series. I had then managed to score a white label private repro of the album since the original was kind of a Garage-Psych holy grail on a budget label (Audio Fidelity) adding at least one figure behind the usual import price of 26 euros of this latest; the sound was like a xerox to boot (! ), so... this reissue with enhanced sound is very welcome indeed, adding a facsimile of the even rarer original insert!
Like all budget exploito labels everywhere (Design, Alshire, Custom... for the USA, Saga in the UK or MFP, Europa or BASF in the Old continent), occasionaly comes a true nugget among all the musak (101 Strings' "Astro Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000" being one, "Electronic Music To Blow Your Mind By!!!" on Design being another, "Are You Experienced?" by T. Swift & The Electric Bag on Custom springs to mind too... and a year ago or so, the same Wah-Wah records graced us with Staff Carpenborg & The Electric Corona's "Fantastic Party", one hell of an Incredible Strange record in similar Freak-out zone! ); these budget labels being geared mostly at middle-aged house-keepers in local supermarkets, the Unfolding enjoins us to have a Freak-out party : "Freaking Out" having been all the rage the previous year among Hip crowds starting on the Sunset Strip, this year '67, it tells us How to have that party and 'Blow Your Mind' in swingin' suburbia trying to catch up... and Geez, like the Twist and Hula Hoop before, you got a method to Turn-on now! Only this time, it really sounds the deal, incredibly so... I wonder what mothers of fairly conservative middle-class homes were thinking then when hearing this record the first time 'round trying to impress the neighbors by throwing a really hip party on the weekends?... Desperate Housewives, class of '67 anyone?
The Press release describes the grooves inside likening the music to the Mothers of Invention (its leader Zappa being one of the conceptors of "Freak-Out"...) and other psych' exploitation albums like Love Machine, Mesmerizing Eye, Fire & Ice LTD or Friendsound but, I would find it more akin to some other Incredible Strange records like Exotic tales set to Sitar music as Kali Bahlu's "Cosmic Remembrance" or "The Perfumed Garden" by Chiitra Neogy and some of the Trance found on "Children of One" too... And one commentator on You Tube wrote it reminded him of the "Sunset Strip" sound of the era since he lived thru the times during high school, despite the fact the studio group was organised by Audio Fidelity records in New York circa '67, so there you go : another Must-Have!
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