To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the first LSD trip, a batch of etheric lysergic soundscapes were contributed to this project by Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mother’s Temple, Robert Wheeler of Pere Ubu, Legendary Pink Dots, Andrew Liles (Nurse with Wound), Andy Rantzen (Pelican Daughter’s) and various artists from the Silent label.
50 Years of Sunshine was released by Silent in ’93, a half century after Dr. Albert Hofmann’s first trip. It came on the back of an acid resurgence aided by the rise of rave music in the psychedelic hotbed of San Fransisco, and featured LSD proponents ranging from Timothy Leary to Nurse With Wound.
The music did not so much reflect the blood, sweat, and ecstasy found inside the nightclubs as..
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…provide an ambient wash that soaked into the listener’s subconscious in much the same way as the drug that influenced it. It was music to lie back and drift away to, eyes closed to avoid the light and encourage the many hazy colors and patterns it evoked to take over your body.
Twenty years later and the Polish label Monotype Records has seen fit to produce what they are calling a “much anticipated software update” in 70 Years of Sunshine. The album, spread over two discs, features several of the 50 Years crew, a host of Silent artists and some relatively new faces, such as Invisible Path. The atmosphere now, in a modern world Hofmann professed to be desperately in need of LSD “to turn us into what we are supposed to be,” is a strangely ominous one. The feeling is that a shift occurred sometime between 1993 and 2013, one that knocked humanity and its desire to “escape” everyday life sideways somewhat — there are uncharacteristic twitches that seem to refer to Hofmann’s unpleasant cycling experience more than they do “colored fountains” and “inner joy.” Mirt‘s “Soul Disorder,” for example, seethes with the croaks of a thousand frogs as a series of clicks echo across the top and a humid, wavering drone laps the edges. It is transporting, sure, but not necessarily to a place in which you’d be happy sitting for too long. Immediately afterwards, Ceremonial Dagger presents “Synesthesia” which does not so much unify the senses as send them scattering in panic, flipping abruptly between shrill electronics and rapid-fire beat onslaughts. Tracks like these suggest a disconnect between Hofmann’s vision and the reality — in these artists’ eyes it’s too late, perhaps, for us to gain any kind of peace from recreational drugs, inner or otherwise.
70 Years succeeds best when it settles into a long passage of gentle atmospherics. Acid Mothers Temple founder Kawabata Makoto’s sublime opener “Lost Milkyway” uses disembodied vocals to conduct a kind of interstellar séance, where the experimenter ascends to join the spirits, and Chihei Hatakeyama presents a similarly woozy journey into the outer reaches of the universe with “Border Feather.” The longer, more abstract pieces of music are broken up by more propulsive tracks such as Lord Tang‘s Orb-ish “Blue Sunshine” and Makyo’s “Octopi,” which channels the underwater world of Drexciya.
The stand-out track is unoubtedly Rafael Anton Irisarri‘s “Scilla im Scilla,” which takes its title from the Latin name for the squill herb. “Scilla im Scilla” sounds like a recording of the plant itself emerging from the ground, all creaks and groans as it struggles against its soil ceiling. When it blooms it does so in such a way as to suggest it could grow forever, infecting the earth and everyone it comes into contact with. It is not dreamy, hallucinatory or particularly pleasant but it does convey perfectly the journey from dirt to mind that scilla took with Hofmann’s help. The deep-seated, ear-piercing squeals that emerge towards the end of the track again highlight the unpleasant effects LSD had on its creator during the initial experiments. Legendary Pink Dots‘ “Don’t Worry Dear, I’ll Be Holding Your Hand” works in a similar way, growing in stature until it releases screams of frustration, while Komora A‘s glitchy “Come Down” unveils reality in all it’s shrill technological horror. It feels like there is some kind of unrest being portrayed, like the artists are straining against a wall of ignorance that is enforced by the closed-minded cynics who’ve driven LSD back to where it came from — back beneath the earth in the bulbs of herbs — or the sheer disappointment that the drug has never truly switched us on to Hofmann’s “deeper, comprehensive reality.”
So what can we take from Alfred Hofmann’s story, the creation of LSD and the influence it has had when when it is presented to us by 70 Years of Sunshine? It has to be said that there is little sunshine to bask in here; not one of these 20 tracks speaks of any great warmth or light in a way that reflects Hofmann’s imagined utopia. Instead you get a series of long, dusky drone pieces, cut up lectures and itchy electronica. It cannot be taken as a positive collection of songs; only Invisible Path’s transcendental “Stare Deep Into the Clouds” and Makoto’s “Lost Milkyway” approach anything like bliss, whereas most of the others squirm darkly. There’s no telling how many of these artists have been directly influenced by experiences with LSD, although most of their music has been created in such a way as to encourage similarly spaced-out reactions. If you trace the history of music back into the twentieth century you can find many examples of LSD working its magic, whether it be in Jimi Hendrix’s headband, Syd Barrett’s hair gel or “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds”, but there’s something about 70 Years of Sunshine that says to me that the acid age is over. The album comes across not as a celebration but as a tired, disillusioned collection of songs that says more about our everyday lives as it does the kaleidoscopic flights of fancy magicked up by drugs.
1. Makoto Kawabata – Lost Milkyway (8:14)
2. Lord Tang – Blue Sunshine (5:36)
3. Chihei Hatakeyama – Border Feather (6:59)
4. Makyo – Octopi (Underwater Dub 2) (5:08)
5. Rafael Anton Irisarri – Scilla Im Scilla (9:29)
6. The Legendary Pink Dots – Don’t Worry Dear, I’ll Be Holding Your Hand (3:58)
7. Lonely Crowd – It’s Getting Near Dawn (2:58)
8. Ethernet – Owsley (7:34)
9. Invisible Path – Stare Deep Into The Clouds (7:14)
10. Phil Legard – Lifting The Veil (8:02)
1. Andrew Liles – Bloodbury 1988 (4:42)
2. Rapoon – Back On The Bus (7:02)
3. Komora A – Come Down (5:58)
4. Darius Ciuta – seR-V (7:59)
5. Mike Rooke – Sliding Spaces (4:22)
6. Mystical Sun – Echodyssey (6:18)
7. Mirt – Soul Disorder (5:05)
8. Ceremonial Dagger – Synesthesia (3:27)
9. Cotton Ferox – How About That? (4:47)
10. Andy Rantzen – No-One Plays Upon Your Mind (3:39)
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11. Sun Hammer – Purples
12. Kim Cascone – Luminous spheres of Dew