Various Artists – Voyages Into …

– Psychedelia Vol.1, Rock Vol.1, Pop-Psych Vol.2, Folk-Rock Vol.2, Garage Vol.2 –

The musical voyages through “rare and intriguing 45’s from the mid ‘60s through the early ‘70s”, delivered in glorious monophonic sound, are being taken to the next stop with a coupla new “wagons” being attached to the initial composition. Again, most of the stuff have never been comped before, which makes it all recommended enough, but here’s what boggles my mynd the most.

We’ll start the “trip” with the Psychedelic one, with THE SOUND EFFECT, sounding kinda like a mellower (or should I say commercialized?) Seeds, as rightly pointed out in the liners too, followed by GLASS FAMILY, whose Teenage Rebellion sounds exactly like that, in a surfers-on-acid kind of way, while Vagabond makes THE PROFITS sound as Moby Grape trying to impress the teenage audience. On the contrary, THE TROLLS (before they morphed into The Troll) provide a full-blown fuzzed-out tribal freak out, not unlike it was done by The Monks before them, THE GOODTIMES’s Mr & Mrs Arthur Thompson Request is a genre defining moody psychedelic rawk-out, and THE MASS, though it might seem a bit out of place within a psychedelic environment, offer a great pioneering power-pop effort with a folk-rocking touch to it.

The Rock volume offers another, more appropriate, Moby Grape reference through THE BRANCH ESTATE’s good-time-ish harmony-laden The Love We Share, as well as yet another attempt at the rootsy power-pop formula, with an additional bubble-gum flavour to it, as heard through UNDERGROUND SHUNSHINE’s Don’t Shut Me Out. The name of THE HOLY MACKEREL is usually being associated with a softer side of things, and this is probably the closest they get to being called “rock”, though their Love For Everyone seems more appropriate for the Pop-Psych volume, and so does the country-influenced CSN harmonizing of WHEATSTRAW and THE ORPHANS’ Deserted, which might almost pass for an Americanized Zombies-arrangement, while on the more title-related side of things, check out the Blue Cheer-like monster-fuzz guitar sound, leading it’s way through another bubble-gum-ish tune by THE INNOVATION.

Approaching one of the mellower stops on our “voyage”, the opening cut of the Pop-Psych series is not really what you’d call a genre defining moment, but it’s still a pretty cool piece of an r’n’beat jangler by THE KNACK, while more in accordance with the concept is the Britsike sounding tune by the appropriately named ENGLISH SETTERS, being somewhere half between Syd’n’Donovan, or the slightly jazzy, Turtle-sounding sunshine pop of LAST WORDS’ I Wish I Had Time, the orchestrated baroque-punk (!?) of SCARECROW’s Kisses Sweeter Than Wine and the Spencer Davis-like soulsike, if there ever was one, of FABULOUS FAKE’s version of No Excess Baggage. In the more catchy department of the volume, you’ll find the bubble-gum-ish Monkee business of JOEY PAIGE’s The Great Airport Mystery, the equally “sticky” Quick Like A Bunny by CITY ZU, or the garagey If Only I Could Fly by GORDIAN KNOT.

The Folk-Rock is the volume that sticks pretty firmly to it’s concept, with some of the highlights being the THE JOKERS’ “animalism” What’cha Gonna Do, the harmony-laden Turtles-like So Be On Your Way by THE ILL WINDS, the Chris Craig-written slightlydelic piece of early Byrds-sounding I Care Babe by GOOD TIME SINGERS, and the equally “high-flying” Meet Your Match by THE NEW ORDER, strongly recalling Gene Clark earliest “flights”. THE REASONABLE FASCIMILE’s Every Day throws in some more upbeat mod-ish stomp, Ask Yourself Why Babe by SAPIANS isn’t too far from the sound of The Creation-doing-Dylan, while FLOYD & JERRY WITH THE COUNTERPOINTS provide us with classic Merseybeat jangle of Girl.

Which brings us to the 2nd Garage volume, with its own Mersey-flavoured item in THE PERSUASIONS’ Deep Down Love. Of the more authentic items, there’s the kind of more lazy, but equally cool, original version of Wild Thing by THE WILD ONES, the “novelty garage-punk” (as appropriately described in the liners) of THE SPOTLIGHTS’ Batman & Robin, the blue-eyed punk sound of LARRY KNIGHT & THE UPSETTERS’ Hurt Me, or the “pretty” wild, frantic vocal delivery of X-tra, X-tra, Read All About It by MAD ANDY’S TWIST COMBO.

So, all that’s left for you to do is to fasten your seat belts and take a TRIP … or a VOYAGE that is.

[Released by Voyages Records 2006]