уторак, 10. мај 2011.

Psychedelic music


Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the United States andBritain. It often used new recording techniques and effects and drew on non-Western sources such as the ragas and drones of Indian music. It spread intopsychedelic folkpsychedelic rockpsychedelic pop and psychedelic soul in the 1960s before declining in the early 1970s. It helped create many new musical genres including progressive rockkosmische musiksynth rockjazz rockheavy metalglam rockfunkelectro and bubblegum pop. It was revived in forms ofneopsychedelia from the 1980s and re-emerged in electronic music in genres including acid housetrance music and new rave.



Main articles: History of LSD and Psychedelic[edit]
Background

Beat Generation writers of the 1950s and 60s, like William BurroughsJack KerouacAllen Ginsberg and especially the new proponents of consciousness expansion such as Timothy LearyAlan Watts andAldous Huxley, profoundly influenced the thinking of the new generation, helping to popularise the use of LSD, associating it with spiritual enlightenment and social consciousness. Soon musicians began to refer (at first indirectly, and later explicitly) to the drug and attempted to recreate or reflect the experience of taking LSD in their music, just as it was reflected in psychedelic artpsychedelic literature and film. 

[edit]Characteristics

Psychedelic music often contains some of the following features:

[edit]History

[edit]Psychedelic folk


Grateful Dead members backstage during the early 1980s
The first musical use of the term psychedelic is thought to have been by the New York-based folk group The Holy Modal Rounders on their version of Lead Belly's 'Hesitation Blues' in 1964. ] Psychedelic music spread rapidly in the beat folk scenes of both the east and west coast of the mid-1960s.[  San Francisco produced bands such as KaleidoscopeIt's a Beautiful DayPeanut Butter Conspiracy and H. P. Lovecraft.[  From New York city's Greenwich Village came groups such as Jake and the Family Jewels and Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys  and from Florida Pearls Before Swine. Many of these psychedelic folk groups followed theByrds into folk rock from 1965, and are, as a result, more widely remembered, including the Grateful DeadJefferson AirplaneCaptain BeefheartCountry Joe and the FishThe Great Society and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
From the mid-sixties, partly as a result of the British Invasion, this trend ran in parallel in both America and Britain and as part of the inter-related folk, folk rock and rock scenes. Blues, drugs, jazz and eastern influences had featured since 1964 in the work of Davy Graham and Bert Jansch.  Folk artists who were particularly significant included the Scottish performers Donovan, who combined influences of American artists like Bob Dylan with references to flower power, and the Incredible String Band, who from 1967 incorporated a range of influences into their acoustic based music, including medieval and eastern instruments. 

[edit]Psychedelic rock

The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to main-stream audiences in the mid-1960s, with "I Feel Fine" (1964) using guitar feedback; in late 1965 the Rubber Soul album included the use of a sitar on "Norwegian Wood"; they employed backmasking on their 1966 single B-side "Rain" and other tracks that appeared on their Revolver album later that year. However, the first use of the term psychedelic rock is generally attributed to Austin, Texas band The 13th Floor Elevators, whose early tours would inspire San Francisco's still incubating scene. The Byrds rapidly progressed from purely folk rock in 1966 with their single "Eight Miles High", widely taken to be a reference to drug use. 
In Britain arguably the most influential band in the genre were The Yardbirds,  who, with Jeff Beck as their guitarist, increasingly moved into psychedelic territory, adding up-tempo improvised "rave ups", Gregorian chant and world music influences to songs including "Still I'm Sad" (1965) and "Over Under Sideways Down" (1966).  From 1966 the UK underground scene based in North London, supported new acts includingPink FloydTraffic and Soft Machine.  The same year saw the débuts of blues rock bands Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose extended guitar-heavy jams became a key feature of psychedelia. 
Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, including the controversial track "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request.[  Pink Floyd produced what is usually seen as their best psychedelic work The Piper at the Gates of Dawn In America the Summer of Love was prefaced by the Human Be-In event and reached its peak at the Monterey Pop Festival, the latter helping to make major American stars of Jimi Hendrix and The Who, whose single "I Can See for Miles" delved into psychedelic territory. ] Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and The DoorsStrange Days.  These trends climaxed in the 1969Woodstock festival, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Santana. 

[edit]Psychedelic pop

As psychedelia emerged as a mainstream and commercial force, particularly through the work of the Beatles, it began to influence pop music, which incorporated hippie fashions, as well as the sounds of sitars, fuzz guitars, and tape effects.[ ] The Beach Boys' hit single "Good Vibrations" was one of the first pop songs to incorporate psychedelic lyrics and sounds, making use of a Tannerin (an easier to manipulate version of a Theremin). American pop-oriented bands that followed in this vein included Electric PrunesStrawberry Alarm Clock and Blues Magoos.  Psychedelic sounds were also incorporated into the output of early bubblegum pop acts like The Monkees and The Lemon Pipers.[  Scottish folk singer Donovan's transformation to 'electric' music gave him a 1966 pop hit with "Sunshine Superman", one of the earliest overtly psychedelic pop records. 
More pop oriented psychedelia was popular among the emerging bands in Australia and New Zealand, including The Easybeats, formed in Sydney but who recorded their international hit "Friday on my mind" (1966) in London and remained there for their forays into psychedelic-tinged pop until they disbanded in 1970. ] A similar path was pursued by the Bee Gees, formed in Brisbane, but whose first album Bee Gees 1st(1967), recorded in London, gave them three major hit singles and contained folk, rock and psychedelic elements, heavy influenced by the Beatles.  The Twilights, formed in Adelaide, also made to trip to London, recording a series of minor hits, absorbing the psychedelic scene, to return home to produce covers of Beatles' songs, complete with sitar, and the concept album Once upon a Twilight (1968).  The most successful New Zealand band, The La De Das, produced the psychedelic pop concept album The Happy Prince (1968), based on the Oscar Wilde children's classic, but failed to break through in Britain and the wider world. 

[edit]Psychedelic soul

Following the lead of Hendrix in rock, psychedelia also began to have an impact on African American musicians, particularly the stars of the Motown label.  Influenced by the civil rights movement, it had a darker and more political edge than much acid rock.  Building on the funk sound of James Brown, it was pioneered by Sly and the Family Stone with songs like "Dance to the Music" (1968), "Everyday People" (1968) and "I Want to Take You Higher" (1969) and The Temptations with "Cloud Nine" (1968), "Runaway Child, Running Wild" (1969) and "Psychedelic Shack" (1969). Others soon followed like the Supremes with "Love Child" (1968) and "Stoned Love" (1970), The Chambers Brothers with "Time has come today" (1966, but charting in 1968), The 5th Dimension with a cover of Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic" (1968)  Edwin Starr's "War" (1970) and the Undisputed Truth's "Smiling Faces Sometimes" (1971).  George Clinton's interdependent Funkadelic and Parliament ensembles and their various spin-offs, took the genre to its most extreme lengths making funk almost a religion in the 1970s,  producing over forty singles, including three in the US top ten, and three platinum albums. 

[edit]Decline


This 'gate fold' record sleeve features UV/stroboscopic photography.
By the end of the decade psychedelia was in retreat. LSD had been declared illegal in the US and UK in 1966.  The murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers, claiming to have been inspired by Beatles' Songs such as "Helter Skelter", has been seen as contributing to an anti-hippie backlash.  At the end of the year (i.e. 1966), the Altamont Free Concert in California, headlined by The Rolling Stones, became notorious for the fatal stabbing of black teenager Meredith Hunter by Hells Angel security guards. ] Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys  Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, were early "acid casualties", helping to shift the focus of the respective bands of which they had been leading figures.  Some bands like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream broke up.  Jimi Hendrix died in London in September 1970, shortly after recording Band of Gypsies (1970), Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in October 1970 and they were closely followed by Jim Morrison of the Doors, who died in Paris in July 1971.  Many surviving acts moved away from psychedelia into either more back-to-basics "roots rock"; traditional-based, pastoral or whimsical folk; the wider experimentation of progressive rock; or riff-laden heavy rock.  By 1970s psychedelic-soul influenced records were losing their grip on the charts and most of the major artists began to look for inspiration elsewhere. 
After the death of Brian Epstein and the unpopular surreal television film, Magical Mystery Tour (1967), the Beatles returned to a raw style with The Beatles (1968),Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970), before their eventual break up.[  The back to basics trend was also evident in the Rolling Stones' albums, from Beggar's Banquet (1968) to Exile on Main St. (1972). English folk rock outfit Fairport Convention released Liege and Lief in 1969, turning away from American-influenced folk rock toward a sound based on traditional British music and founding the sub-genre of electric folk, to be followed by bands like Steeleye Span and Fotheringay.[ ]The psychedelic-influenced and whimsical strand of British folk continued into the 1970s with acts including ComusMellow CandleNick DrakeThe Incredible String Band and Trees and with Syd Barrett's two solo albums. 

[edit]Influence

Many of the British musicians and bands that had embraced psychedelia went on to create progressive rock in the 1970s, including Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and members of YesKing Crimson's album In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), has been seen as an important link between psychedelia and progressive rock.[  While bands such as Hawkwind maintained an explicitly psychedelic course into the 1970s, most dropped the psychedelic elements in favour of wider experimentation.[  As they moved away from their psychedelic roots and placed increasing emphasis on electronic experimentation German bands likeKraftwerkTangerine DreamCan and Faust developed a distinctive brand of electronic rock, known as kosmische musik, or in the British press as "Kraut rock".  The adoption of electronic synthesisers, pioneered by Popol Vuh from 1970, together with the work of figures like Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music), would be a major influence on subsequent synth rock] The incorporation of jazz into the music of bands like Soft Machine and Can, also contributed to the development of the jazz rock of bands like Colosseum.[ 
Psychedelic rock, with its distorted guitar sound, extended solos and adventurous compositions has been seen as an important bridge between blues-oriented rock and later heavy metal. Two former guitarists with the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, moved on to form key acts in the genre, The Jeff Beck Group and Led Zeppelin respectively. Other major pioneers of the genre had begun as blues-based psychedelic bands, including Black SabbathDeep PurpleJudas Priest and UFO. 
Psychedelic music also contributed to the origins of glam rock, with Marc Bolan changing his psychedelic folk duo into rock band T. Rex and becoming the first glam rock star from 1970. ] From 1971 David Bowiemoved on from his early psychedelic work to develop his Ziggy Stardust persona, incorporating elements of professional make up, mime and performance into his act. 
Psychedelic influences lasted a little longer in pop music, stretching into the early 1970s and playing a major part in the creation of Bubblegum pop. Similarly, psychedelic soul continued into the 1970s and its sounds were incorporated into funk music and eventually disco music. 

[edit]Neo-psychedelia

Psychedelic rock began to be revived in the later 1970s by bands of the post-punk scene, including the Teardrop ExplodesEcho and the BunnymenThe Church, and the Soft Boys.[ ] In the US in the early 1980s these bands were joined by the Paisley Underground movement, based in Los Angeles, with acts like Dream SyndicateThe Bangles and Rain Parade] There were occasional mainstream acts that dabbled in neo-psychedelia, including Prince's mid-'80s work and some of Lenny Kravitz's 1990s output, but it has mainly been an influence on alternative and indie-rock bands.  In the 1990s the Elephant 6 collective, including acts like The Apples in StereoThe Olivia Tremor ControlNeutral Milk HotelElf Power and Of Montreal, produced eclectic psychedelic rock and folk.[  Other alternative rock acts that delved into psychedelic territory included Australian band The ChurchNick Saloman's Bevis Frond, the space rock of Spacemen 3 and diverse acts like Mercury Rev, the Flaming Lips and Super Furry Animals.  In the early 1990s stoner rock emerged, combining elements of psychedelic rock, blues-rock and doom metal. Typically using slow-to-mid tempo and featuring low-tuned guitars in a bass-heavy sound,  with melodic vocals, and 'retro' production, it was pioneered by the Californian bands Kyuss   and Sleep.  In the new millennium neo-psychedelia was continued by bands directly emulating the sounds of the 60s like Tame Impala  and The Essex Green. 

[edit]Psychedelic electronic music


A smiley face, often used as a symbol of acid house.
From the 1980s psychedelic music began to be revived within forms of electronic music, often connected to the rave subculture, and leading to a host of sub-genres, including acid housebreakbeat hardcoretrancehardstyleUK garagehardcore technonew rave and many other rave music genres.

[edit]Acid house

Acid house originated in the mid-1980s in the house music style of Chicago DJs like DJ PierreAdonisFarley Jackmaster Funk and Phuture, the last of which coined the term on his "Acid Trax" (1987). It mixed elements of house with the "squelchy" sounds and deep basslines produced by the Roland TB-303 synthesizer. As singles began to reach the UK the sound was re-created, beginning in small warehouse parties held in London in 1986-87. During 1988 in the Second Summer of Love it hit the mainstream as thousands of clubgoers travelled to mass raves. The genre then began to penetrate the British pop charts with hits for M/A/R/R/S,S'Express, and Technotronic by the early 1990s, before giving way to the popularity of trance music. 

[edit]Trance

Trance music originated in the German techno and hardcore scenes of the early 1990s. It emphasized brief and repeated synthesizer lines with minimal rhythmic changes and occasional synthesizer atmospherics, with the aim of putting listeners into a trance-like state. Derived from acid house and techno music it developed in Germany and the Netherlands with singles including "Energy Flash" by Joey Beltram and "The Ravesignal" by CJ Bolland. This was followed by releases by Robert Leiner, Sun ElectricAphex Twin and most influentially the techno-trance released by the Harthouse label, including the much emulated "Acperience 1" (1992) by duo Hardfloor. Having gained some popularity in the UK in the early 1990s it was eclipsed by the appearance of new genres of electronic music such as trip-hop and jungle, before taking off again towards the end of the decade and beginning to dominate the clubs, with DJs including Paul OakenfoldPete TongTony De VitDanny RamplingSashaJudge Jules and in the US Christopher Lawrence and Kimball Collins. It soon began to fragment into a number of subgenres, including progressive tranceacid trance,Euro tranceGoa trancehard trance and uplifting trance.[66]

[edit]New rave

In Britain in the 2000s the combination of indie rock with dance-punk was dubbed new rave in publicity for The Klaxons and the term was picked up and applied by the NME to a number of bands,  including Trash Fashion,  New Young Pony Club, Hadouken!Late of the PierTest Icicles,  and Shitdisco.  It formed a scene with a similar visual aesthetic to earlier rave music, centred around visual effects: glowsticks,neon and other lights were common, and followers of the scene often dressed in extremely bright and fluorescent coloured clothing.  

[edit]

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