As we await a Townsman’s musings on the future of psych, I stumbled across a remnant of psych’s past, the s/t 1970 album by Sweden’s short-lived Baby Grandmothers (Subliminal Sounds). What can I say but This is some heavy, heavy instrumental power-trio psychedelia! This is the kind of music power trios were formed to play: open-ended, fuzzed-out guitar and bass explorations with rumbling, bashing, sometimes impressionistic drumming. Most of the songs are long. As a sample, I’ve selected one that gets right to the point and then seems to fade out, as if the tape snapped:
Baby Grandmothers, “Raw Diamond”
There’s almost nothing subtle about this number, but other tracks, such as “Being Is More Than Life”, sound like something Hot Tuna might have cooked up on a good night, with tender-if-occasionally clunky bass and searing guitar interplay. You can sense fringed boots and headband somewhere in the grooves. I highly recommend this album for anyone wasting their time on Swedish psych albums with lyrics you’ll never understand, not to mention 3rd-rate psych finds with understandable lyrics not worth hearing.
I’ll have to hear more of this. The Hendrix connection is obvious!