Various Artists: Talking About the Good Times Volume 1

With Talking About the Good Times, Past & Present have unearthed another treasure trove of psychedelic obscuria dripping with acid illusions, backwards-looped tape, fuzz guitar and whimsical orchestration from the tail-end of the ’60s.

Through the crackle and acetate hiss comes the echo of turned-on unknowns who use a Jew’s harp to fuel their claustrophobic psych-folk jam session “Red Admiral”, while rare numbers by psych-beat collector faves the Creation, a band that once described their music as being “red with purple flashes”, and the Smoke’s “Thus Spake Alice”, a trippy Toytown tribute to Little Miss Wonderland’s recreational drug-taking that previously appeared on Castle’s definitive 2002 compilation High In the Room, are highly recommended. Elsewhere, things get hard ‘n’ heavy with primal garage-punk by Bruno Castiglia and I Bisonti and Hard Meat’s bluesy six-minute progressive rocker “Burning Up the Years”. These tracks remind us that not everything was rainbows and daisy chains back in the day. Best of all has to be “She’s That Kind Of Women” by John Williams (no, not that John Williams), a gem of a pop song that rocks out on cello. Bring on volume two.