I'm not that good at reviews, but someone has to do it:
Asylum Choir - Look Inside The Asylum Choir (1968)
with Leon Russel & Marc Benno
Track List
01- Welcome to Hollywood 02- Soul Food 03- Icicle Star Tree 04- Death of the Flowers 05- Indian Style 06- N.Y. Op. /Land of Dog /Mr. Henri the Clown 07- Thieves in the Choir 08- Black Sheep Boogaloo
One of the freshest sounds of the 60s, that I still don't understand how it was such a failure to the band. This album has everything, condensed in only 27 minutes. From Rock n' Roll, Blues, Pop, R&B and of course, the great Psych. Each track is so much different from the previous one, but the album keeps advancing smoothly.
01- Welcome to Hollywood: One of the freshest, happiest tracks of the album, a bit like most of the opening tracks of the time (
Sgt Pepper, S.F Sorrow is Born ... ). It's a song that welcomes the listener to the album, just what the name of the track suggests. That song alone mixes 4 genres of music, it starts with a blues progression, continues in a fast rhythm of pop with maracas, and in a contrasting verse-chorus form, the song gets more psychedelic to tell us "Welcome" with a touch of musique-concrête reminiscent of the
Yellow Submarine.
02- Soul Food: In a song about soul food, the use of soul music is somehow mandatory. The tune is catchy and the rhythm is fast, a kind of prolongation to the first track. Nothing really special about that track, other than it really gets you going.
03- Icicle Star Tree: The title introduces you to the surreal world of the song. A typical enjoyable psychedelic track, it commences with the sound known to twinkling stars, you ascend into the dream... and the song begins. From the use of the surreal descriptions (
pink lemonade landmark ... Popsicle-ing starlight ...) in the lyrics to the hypnotizing melody... you are certainly in wonderland.
04- Death of the Flowers: ... and here are the twinkling stars again to wake you up from the dream. A really nice touching mellow song, speaking of death and loss.
05- Indian Style: The track begins with an audio collage of sounds that surprisingly verges to a pop song with close vocal harmonies. An enjoyable filler that puts you in a good chirpy mood for the incredible B side ...
I don't think we can divide the B-side into tracks, it's 13 minutes of bliss, composed of
06- N.Y. Op. /Land of Dog /Mr. Henri the Clown - 07- Thieves in the Choir - 08- Black Sheep Boogaloo: I don't think i can say much about this part of the album, we can only listen to it and enjoy it (it's the video posted by Molecules). Tho there are some missing parts, from the beginning and the end, so the best is always to get the album and enjoy it in its fullest.
*Still the most annoying part of that album, is the shortness of it. I'm downloading their second album now. I guess the two of them put back-to-back should create a reasonable length.