Taj Mahal Travellers - August 1974
Two-disc face melter. No really. Don't lean in too close. This is a Japanese avant free-noise space-commune meltdown. Led by Fluxus artist Takehisa Kosugi. Eerily ceremonial, psychedelica-incantatory. Sinister and sublime. "trippy" doesn't really cut it, trippy sounds like lava lamps and those "Magic Eye" books. Behind the spare, delicate tremors of strings and hand percussion they've got some crazy distorted synths lurking like thunderclouds in the background, uncurling at you like immense demon snakes in slow-motion. They're really beautifully resonant and disorted, like gloriously feedbacking guitars. Record sounds like you're at an ancient temple, with the lightest tufts of snow still falling on the cedar, early spring on the mountain, and ancient beardos are summing down gods from outer space to begin a new era on this earth. The kind of record you can forget about for ten years and put on again and still get upset by how intense it is. I can't really think of many albums that are as simultaneously bugged out and beautiful as this one.
