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Reviews

Brainticket — Celestial Ocean
(Purple Pyramid CLP 2306-2, 1973/2008, CD)

by Mike Ohman, Published 1997-10-01

Celestial Ocean Cover art

Surely you remember the Swiss psych-prog group Brainticket? Or at least their freak-out classic Cottonwoodhill, what with its infamous recording of a woman actually having a bad trip (or a nervous breakdown, or maybe even going insane). It wasn’t so much psychedelic as just psychotic. Celestial Ocean isn’t quite that extreme, but it is weird. It’s somewhere between the utter lunacy of Cottonwoodhill and the laid-back electronic hippie-isms of the prior album, Psychonaut. It’s also more electronic than ever, relying more on synthesizers than ever before, presaging the two later albums, Adventure and Voyage, which were almost all synthesizers. Lots of multilayered spoken vocals, not as much as Cottonwoodhill, though, and less reliance on tape-loops and sound effects. This is probably the best they have to offer, as it avoids both the ludicrous lack of subtlety of the first and the blandness of the second. One major drawback with this pressing: the tracks on the original vinyl all segued together; the CD inserts one-second gaps in-between all the tracks. Very annoying!

Filed under: Reissues, Issue 13, 2008 releases, 1973 recordings

Related artist(s): Brainticket, Joel Vandroogenbroeck

More info
http://brainticket.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-ocean

 

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