Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve
[sleeve notes]
Psychedelia is more than a word, it’s a state of being.
Commonly abbreviated to Psych, it’s mainly used to define a period of music – the zenith of which occurred between 66>68. The result is that many people tend to think that it’s all over, that psychedelia can be confined to fanzine retrospectives, neo-Mod janglers and eBay tag-lines. Or even Oasis.
In fact psychedelia has been a constant thread throughout musical history: crossing over into funk and disco during the seventies, taking a detour through dark synthesised post-punk, and then returning to black music with Electro and early House, before exploding again with Acid House, Balearic Beats, early Ambient, Junglist – you get the picture. It’s never gone away. And it’s great with beats.
Psychedelia is not just a musical style but a perception. It’s open-minded, open-hearted, and spacious in scope. The use of backwards instruments is the most obvious sign of an approach that seelks to draw you in, enveloping you with pleasure or joy. Or pain, or sorrow, or loneliness: what psychedelic drugs do, rather than deaden or dull, is to enhance all the senses.
The word was originally coined by Dr. Humphrey Osmond in a mid fifties letter to peyote/ LSD explorer – and world-famous author – Aldous Huxley. ‘To fathom hell or soar angelic’, he wrote, ‘just take a pinch of psychedelic’. That’s the point: psychedelics are not to be taken lightly: they can offer visions of ecstasy or plunge you into the darkest hell. Remember: they deepen the mood.
Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve have, together, a long association with psychedelia, that passes through the mid 80′s discovery of Brit psych, the late 80′s/ early 90′s Balearic moment, to the very 21st century mash-up aesthetic: there’s so much music out there, past and present, why not put it all together, all at once? Let’s….try it. Their remake/ remodels have already become legendary.
Here you get to experience the expansive BTWS aesthetic. It includes soft, caressing Balearic beats, full-on psych backwards sound, and proper mash-up style break-ups and breakdowns. Despite the variety of voices on this collection – ranging from femme folk vamp Goldfrapp through cool chanteuse Tracey Thorn to teenage electronic heads Late Of the Pier – there is a unity of theme and of mood.
This reflects the way that BTWS approach the remix: to enhance, rather than overpower, the original. Just as real life is not experienced on one note, the mixes here run the gamut of moods: from the threatening curses of the Chemical Brothers’ “Battlescars” to the ambiguous, half cynical searching of Goldfrapp’s “Happiness” to the mostly instrumental wig-outs at the disc’s end.
It ends in “Love”. It isn’t all you need but it’s pretty damn important: as Goldfrapp sings, ‘time stops still when you’ve lost love’. BTWS understand that psychedelia can’t banish the ‘real world’ – whatever that might be – but that it can open new doors, take you on a trip with/out drugs, or simply make you feel better. So dive in deep and bathe in their electronic textures: you have nothing to lose but your mind.