Fifty Foot Hose -
Cauldron
Nationality: American
Released: December 1967
Genres: Psychedelic rock, experimental rock
Average RYM rating: 3.67
Recommended by: Frownland
Track listing:
And After
If Not This Time
Opus 777
The Things That Concern You
Opus 11
Red the Sign Post
For Paula
Rose
Fantasy
God Bless the Child
Cauldron
This is in the Rock Album Survivor thread, and I've never heard it. Time to change that.
Vibrations in the left channel open the "And After" and the album. Thery're almost like the sound of an aircraft flying overhead. They get louder and faster until the pulses turn into a steady, rippling drone and gradually move toward the right channel. The pitch is changing, and it's over.
"If Not This Time" was Frown's recommendation. It opens with a neat guitar riff, based on some weird harmonies. Then a female vocalist kicks in, echoing herself. Sounds kinda like Jefferson Airplane. There are weird electronic noises bleeping in the background, and they eventually take over as the track ends. Or not, that riff is back, and so are the vocals.
"My soul eroded
My brain imploded
Down to cinders
Growing new senses to feel
Seeing, hearing all that is real
If not this time, maybe never"
A door opens and it's over.
"Opus 777" is too short to scrobble on Last.fm and therefore too short to talk about.
"The Things That Concern You" has a more conventional melody and male vocals, again with the echo effect. But the synths fooling around in the background keep it interesting. There's a trippy solo, and then the vocals are back. This one has a nice groove--almost like an doo-wop tune gone mad. The synths and guitar accelerate, building up to an upward pitch bend.
Another short track is up in "Opus 11". Damn, wish these things would scrobble.
A heavy, distorted descending synth (?) line kicks off "Red the Signpost". The female vocalidt returns. The synth is providing a fuzzy wall of sound behind her, sometimes playing a melody, sometimes droning, sometimes taking a solo while she wails. I'm loving her voice. It builds up, then suddenly tapers away to some electronic blips and ends.
When did I get into a submarine? That's what the intro of "For Paula" feels like. Wait, that's the whole song.
"Rose" is more laid back, kinda Doors-y, but with female vocals. So far, I'm reminded of
United States of America[/] + a little bit of [IPiper at the Gates of Dawn. She's whispering now, while the bass goes all over the place. Almost sounds like a standup. The synths are chugging away in the background, adding unconventional hums, squeals, whirs, and cracks periodically. There's a long solo, and then we're back to the main song. She kinda sounds like Janis Joplin now. The synth trails away and we're on to...
"Fantasy", which sounds like the soundtrack to a '60s sci-fi show to begin, then settles into a chill groove, which gradually progresses into controlled chaos. There are so many unconventional sounds and instruments here that it's not even worth describing thrm all--I don't even know what's playing the lead. But those synths keep doing different things. Now it's a more straightforward psychedelic jam. Nice guitar work by whoever. That crescendos and transitions into some gentle strumming. Other instruments kick in one by one. Very early-proggy. After six minutes, the vocals have kicked in. There's a neat thing going on, the backing track is also playing the vocal melody. Now that chill groove from the beginning returns and things get weeeeird, man. It sounds like, well, a cauldron, or perhaps a swamp, bubbling and oozing liquids and gases. That ends and a different vocal melody enters. The track collapses in a heap of noise.
"God Bless the Child" is more straightforward. Or it would be, y'know, except it isn't because of all the synths. I keep mentioning them, but they are what make this album so interesting and unique. Oh, she's singing about money, I believe, and maybe the rich? There's some acoustic guitar and a chipmunk chatter dancing around between channrls. Sounds like a cello at the end.
Bells hearald th arrival of the title track, "Cauldron". Some processed, reverb-heavy spoken word takes over, then gains a melody as the bass plays a jazzy line in the background. Somr weeping and gnashing of teeth is going on in the background--sounds like somebody's being boiled in the cauldron. Some clanking and maybe rattling of chains accentuates their misery. Then there's a nice sizzle. There's some bubbling, like something has been tossed into the pot. Something that sounds like a parrot laughing jumps in. Man, this is creepy.
Well, this one is certainly going to be hard to vote off. I'll give it a 4.5, just because it's not quite as good as USA.