Clown Acid

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Zany Clowny

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I wanted to create a music thread for awhile now, but the moment wasn't right. Being that it's 4/20 and all, the time feels right for a psychedelic music thread. I have dug up some forgotten lysergic tunes that somehow found their way to me.

Stan Hubbs released his one and only album in anachronistic obscurity. By 1981, the summer of love was a distant memory. This did not stop Stan from making one of the most smoke caked, foggy psych rock albums ever recorded.

Why start the thread with Stan? Well, the legend goes that he literally smoked himself to death. Yes, you heard that correctly - the leading cause of his controversial death in 1996 is a marijuana overdose. How this was achieved, how the rumor ever started, I couldn't tell you. Listening to the psych downer monster "Juggernaut" adds a bit of perspective to his death - only a man who has become weed incarnate could suck the oxygen out of the atmosphere and replace it with his homegrown, exhaled smoke.

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Disneyland is in itself a pretty psychedelic experience. Did you know that in the late 60s, they had bands playing covers of popular psych songs for the bored, babysitting teens at the park, too cool for Mickey Mouse? What happens when the sheet you've got on your tongue starts to dissolve and kick in? The band stops playing covers. You've entered a land within the land...and the songs are changing.

Enter The Aggregation. With a vocalist that has a Jim Morrisonesque delivery, this album is the illmatic of tripping balls at an amusement park. In the same way Nas can take you to New York, The Aggregation can take you to the Mickey Mouse House of Mirrors. Buy a ticket from and ask your questions to The Lady At The Gate.

Finally, the inspiration for the thread title: Brown Acid, a series of underground acid rock compilations out of RidingEasyRecords. You know what you're getting into by now, so I'll just leave you with their latest release, which came out today! The Fourteenth Trip...




I have so much more music to share. If you like it, it's for you. ;)
 
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Zany Clowny

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So we have already been introduced to an eerily similar band to The Doors with The Aggregation, but compared to this next act, it'll seem like a flat open.

Phantom's Divine Comedy, Part 1 is the only officially released album during their active years. By 1974, Morrison had been dead for about 3 years, the psychedelic itch was being scratched by prog rock coming out of England. It was mostly dead in the U.S at this point, even the leftover sound inherent in early metal was being refined into its own thing entirely.

The personnel in the group are still disputed. To this day, the true identity of "Phantom", a man with a staggering vocal resemblance to Jim, is still unclear. Tom Carson, an aspiring Detroit rocker, is the leading suspect, but it's a zodiac killer kinda thing. Isn't that what Jim would want? A cryptic resurrection, debated into the 21st century? Very lizard king, very poetic.

Rumors persist that Iggy Pop shows up on backing vocals. Pop and Ray Manzarek met the mysterious Phantom, and part of that story is found below. They bring him up to perform Doors hits and the crowd goes apeshit. It was as if for one night only, Jim Morrison was still alive, and those attendance were witnessing an all timer of a concert. An excerpt from Ray's book, who is the keyboardist for The Doors for those unaware, described meeting Phantom like a dream. A strange encounter with an eccentric man who has a speaking voice and appearance uncannily similar to Jim.


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Next up is just a simple shout out to an underrated band. The Boston psych scene in general has some hidden gems worthy of discussion down the line. As it relates to the rest of this post, for an album recorded in 1968 it was both if it's time and forward thinking. Jazz Thing is Riders on The Storm, the formula, years prior to the final Morrison hit.

The name of the group is Ultimate Spinach. They got their name when lead singer was on some industrial grade, CIA tier LSD and picked up a green marker, drawing all over himself. Once done, he exclaimed in the mirror: "I am the Ultimate Spinach!"
 

Zany Clowny

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Mack Porter is a singer from Ghana with a bluesy, Hendrix type of voice. His 1972 album Peace On You was slated to be much more typical, but recorded in Italy I believe, with backing by an Italian group who wanted to infuse psychedelic flourishes into the music. This was the early 70s, Hendrix had just died, metal is becoming a thing and the influence of bands like Vanilla Fudge and Blue Cheer are being seen in Black Sabbath. The track above has that downtrodden, oppressive hard rock guitar mixed with Mack's vocals that seem to be clipping out of a dream.

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I am not up to date on the guitarists canon; the rankings and perceptions of a guy like Jerry Cole is lost on me. A session guitarists who worked with so many top artists that it's worth quoting his Wiki, which I want to avoid in most of these quasi reviews.

"The list of names Cole worked with as guitarist, vocalist, writer, arranger, producer, or bandleader includes: Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Aretha Franklin, The Righteous Brothers, Little Richard, Dean Martin, Merle Haggard, Ray Charles, Tony Orlando & Dawn, Lou Rawls, Johnny Rivers, Gregg Allman, Lee Hazlewood, Blood Sweat & Tears, Kenny Rogers, Neil Diamond, Steely Dan, and Isaac Hayes."

..the Byrds and the Beach Boys, too. Why I bring him up specifically after a Hendrix soundalike is Cole's work on studio cash grab albums. Put a beautiful woman on the cover, cover some well known tracks, pad the rest with your own guitar freakouts. It made enough money to do repeatedly. I wonder what that must feel like, to be a complete mercenary musician? Cole had his own solo band, The Iyd, but the labels wanted psychsploitation to stuff in record shops. The two songs above would make a purchase of these vinyls on the cheap worthwhile back in the day. So maybe he's not a sexy pick for your favorite guitarist, but I hope someone holds that opinion out there.
 

Zany Clowny

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Tiny Tim was easily one of the most misunderstood artists of the 1960s. Brought out by most to be a novelty act with a high pitched voice as his gimmick and nothing more, people took him as just that. Tim was actually one of the most educated musicians around, an archivist, who would incorporate forgotten melodies dating back to 1907 into his on stage, vaudeville performances. Completely out of sync with time, Tim had an androgynous appearance, wore very early skincare creams, had long unkempt hair and would wear white makeup, KISS style, in the early 1950s. People would call him a sissy and get hostile and he didn't care, at the same time being a devout Catholic who listened to Fulton Sheen on the radio. Religion, ideology or negative experiences, tabloid scandals, fame, lack thereof, did nothing to corrupt the innocence that propelled him to brief stardom. The above track, Strawberry Tea, is one of the prettiest psychedelic pop songs ever put on an album.

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This may seem like a left field, oddball couple here, and my explanation could land me in outer space. Both God Bless Tiny Tim and The Man On The Moon: The End of Day are concept albums made 40 years apart, that both blend the psychedelic sounds of the day (Beatles for Tim, MGMT for Cudi) with their own infectious melodic ear, and semi autobiographical lyrics. Both literally start with an open word introduction to a dream, as seen above. Cudi and Tim connected with a younger audience after trying to make it for so long. Also, unfortunately, it's taken awhile for them to get their respect, for people to give them their credit and due. The influence they ended up having is very similar. Cudi's emotionally honest songwriting, spacey atmosphere, was the groundwork for Lil Uzi Vert and Travis Scott. In that same way, the carnival aesthetics, gender bending, makeup faced performances Tim put on were still considered cutting edge when appropriated by KISS and Alice Cooper.

I will probably talk about Kid Cudi and his influence if I continue to cover modern psychedelic music. Astroworld still has a bad taste in my mouth, so it'll be awhile.

 
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Zany Clowny

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I will just be upfront here and say I am not the biggest fan of the Bee Gees overall. The disco era was a big hit and miss for me, and the adult contemporary tier rock attempts in the 80s don't even register. However, their first album to me is a near masterpiece of Beatles homage psych. The album cover encapsulates the sound perfectly: clean cut looking guys who are in tune with the sounds the time, primarily the baroque pop, layered in strings and melodrama. Underneath is a blossoming mind garden, which blends with the orchestration...it all turns into a Beatley gumbo with hallucinogenic properties. Yum.

A streak of darkness runs through this album, especially when the orchestral sound is forced to make way for an oncoming bad trip.



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Finally, we're back to some more obscure psychedelia with an interesting history worth sharing with you. Grapefruit are a band with lineage connected to both AC/DC and the lesser known, but influential The Easybeats. Signed to Apple Records, the band had an encounter with John Lennon. Lennon, unsolicited or not is lost to history, told the upcomers to name their group Grapefruit, after Yoko's poetry book of the same name. With a promising start, biopic origin story, and talent as displayed above, it's a mystery as to why they flopped into complete obscurity. Granted, members of the band went to do well, but they're better than the footnote status they've been regulated to as displayed above.

Both of these albums share their love of dramatic orchestra and sunshine acid pop, purely British. The songs below are as if they were plucked out of the McCartney songbook when he left it in the studio.


 

Zany Clowny

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A few cruel summers ago, Kanye West was off his meds but hitting a creative peak, tucked away somewhere in rural Wyoming. Kid Cudi had recently resurfaced after a post album release hibernation, posting a sort of depression confession and admittance of helplessness. How a Kanye being wildly swung in either direction by his bi-polar disorder and a lowkey, mid recovery Kid Cudi made such a cohesive album that appeared out of nowhere is a late career miracle. What had started out as forum chatter for Kanye diehards, who discovered the working title for this project, or at least the alleged one, Everybody Wins. This was shouted during an event Cudi attended and his face lit up, as did the subreddits and message boards. It came out as Kids See Ghosts, critically acclaimed, a Fantano 10. Even when Kanye hate was at a fever pitch, music critics begrudgingly gave their seal of approval. Removing that, Pitchfork gave Man on the Moon a 4/10, so it's never a given with these two.

Reborn acts as mantra, fitting given the hums. It features a Kanye verse where he almost breaks kayfabe and admits that he's losing it. In a way he is so ego driven that seeing masses of people react to him, even negatively, is a thrill.

"I was off the chain, I was often drained
I was off the meds, I was called insane
What an awesome thing, engulfed in shame
I want all the rain, I want all the pain
I want all the smoke, I want all the blame."



The aptly titled Cudi Montage closes the album on an acoustic, Cobainesque note with backing vocals provided by Mr. Hudson. Having that trio work on a Kanye song is a guaranteed classic, as those three made 808s & Heartbreak in their collective image. Something about this song and album as a whole feels closer to heaven than Donda does. It's brighter, timeless, and brief. Jesus said to pray using few words, so maybe the psychedelia of personal experience and reality with some "Lord shine your light on me..." sprinkled in gets us closer to God than gospel chants, 70 minute albums and livestreamed Sunday Services...but who would believe me?

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Don Tolliver has a voice and flow reminiscent of so many other acts that it can be a detriment to the atmosphere he creates on albums. This one in particular, Life of a Don, has an ambient, near hypnagogia trap sound to it, like if you combined the acid theme park Astroworld with a Bryson Tiller album. The Travis Scott feature above has such an ethereal beat, fireworks in a pitch black sky feeling; it's so dark I can't see a foot in front of me, but light bursts every few seconds to illuminate the sky.



What You Need drifts up and down slowly, rising and falling, a carousel ride of a track with the robotic vocals that make me disassociate. Sometimes, autotune is better at enhancing human emotion, instead of taking it away. This is the case here, where even the machines are drug addled. The rest of the album is remarkably consistent, and a good way to listen to this type of music without reliving the Astroworld concert disaster. Speaking of concerts, I will be seeing Cudi and Tolliver perform live in Toronto in the tail end of the summer. Hope it's a good show.
 
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Zany Clowny

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Clocking in at under 25 minutes, the self titled Willow proves itself worthy in a fraction of that time. It's a strange hill to die on, but I will always defend Whip My Hair for being completely different sounding than what was expected from a child rapper. The energy of that song is distinctly crunk, an early example of deconstructed club music entering the mainstream. I did not hear anything after that until the Kid Cudi track Rose Golden on his 2016 work, PP&DS, where she is a bundle of positivity; a ray of sunshine on a rather eerie, artistic piece of nocturnal pop rap.

Finally, this album. Featuring introspective lyrics, a surprisingly emotive and on pitch singing voice that is wrapped up snug in a polychromatic production blanket. The song PrettyGirlz above has a heavy Frank Ocean vibe. Odd Future must've had some influence on her, as the mellowness, West Coast nostalgic atmosphere is very Tyler. The closer is the most fully realized piece here, and it's wonderful. Erase the miserable Jaden feature and you've got the perfect album. If Willow can come to terms with her celebrity upbringing and make her own art away from that predetermined machinery, it would not surprise me to see her have a critically acclaimed, classic album one day.

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Future often gets lumped into the (now thankfully outdated) mumble rap category, or tagged as the natural progression of what a T-Pain would be. To me, his lyricism gets vastly overlooked by the pinnacle of trap beats he puts his auto tuned voice to. This album is basically a man at peak excess and celebrity, sitting you down and telling you why this life is not worth it. The type of person who could nod off on a set of strip club speakers, garbled hihats rattling in his ear. For every bar about luxury, women, or being high, you've got absolute paranoia, the ominous feeling that someone is going to kill him, the trauma of having so many people close to him end up in prison forever. He's comedic, brags a lot, can ride a beat well, but never sounds genuinely happy.

So much of DS2 is dedicated to cough syrup consumption. Opening with the cap being twisted and poured into an assumed styrofoam cup, the door closes shut behind as Future riffs on drug trafficking and fucking your wife. Later on down the album, when you've practically drowned, Future is still delivering lines that appear off the cuff, with raising levels of unease. In the same track that he talks about dropping acid for the first time and it feeling good, it's made so obviously fleeting and pointless shortly after.

"In the Rover duckin' undercover, huggin' the Interstate
Coppin' a couple cakes, the drum hangin' under me
Got a chain hangin' over me
God watchin' over me, all my angels watch over me"

...I love the color purple.
 
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Marty McFourth

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Not super in to current day rap compared to 90's and what have you, but Future is one of the few I've enjoyed listening to on the rare occasion

I find a lot of his songs a pretty interesting listen
 
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Domo Genesis is a name that will ring a bell to a very specific age demographic. Right before the roach eating existed there was this time where the two most talented members of the OFWGKTA collective on the mic seemed to be Earl Sweatshirt and Domo Genesis, and both made projects that weren't peppered with slurs and murderous fantasies, ala early, Relapse Eminem influenced Tyler, The Creator.

So why include Rolling Papers in this thread? Well, for one it features Tyler beats that sound much more like something he would be doing years down the line, as a more mature artist. The overall feel of this is that ethereal youth memory of convenience stores, cans of Arizona Iced Tea, blunt guts, walking halfway across town to meet a plug, skipping school, smoking mid huddled under a slide and swingset in a neighborhood with a median age of 57, packing loosely rolled joints with a generic brand, see through plastic pen. The two tracks above showcase that juvenile, early summer vibe. Domo Genesis never capitalized on his fame with a proper follow up, his timing was always off. Here, he was up next.

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On the flip side of the same vibe: The sun setting a fiery orange in late May, laying in a patch of thick grass. Mark Fry takes the Donovan sound to another level here. Something unsettling is happening beneath in a deeply comforting way. The soft instrumentation, the delicate vocals, the drum patterns sounding like the backing to a pagan ritual, it's a trip. The title track is broken up into parts and goes under then above and back, warping the sense of sequencing and time.

The production is so warm and intimate, with the obscurity of this thing it also feels like a kept secret, for your eyes only sort of deal. The flutes, almost medieval poet lyricsm, make for an addictive album. The first song above in particular is basically dream pop psych, years before Lennon would pen #9 dream. Would be a personal desert island pick for me.
 

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Here you've got a band that's aware it isn't going to breakthrough into the mainstream like they want to in Spooky Tooth, who somehow get recruited by French experimental musician and artist Pierre Henry for this one time project/exhibition. The result is a Christian psychedelic dirge. The leader singer (possibly Dream Weaver and keyboardist Gary Wright) is yelling MERCY, LORD HAVE MERCY as Pierre drags his cooking appliances across a bus terminal and the band cuts a 6 minute guitar solo that would make Hendrix proud. It completely destroyed Spooky Tooth as en entity, who had already put out solid albums prior, always trippy; different, but never to this degree. Challenging listen certainly, but great. They included a bonus single from their earlier days to feel their vibe. But the damage was done!

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Brian Wilson is a genius who slept through the last healthy years his brothers and The Beach Boys still had together. At the peak of his boundary pushing creativity, needing to confide in and be encouraged by a good friend, he reaches out to piece of shit Mike Love. Mike Love says Brian is no good right now and the Smile Sessions (the scrapped ambitious sequel to Pet Sounds) come to an abrupt end. They would continue as a group, but it was all downhill from there for Brian, mentally. Shutting off from the world, acid addled, binge eating, doing nothing, the majority of the mid 70s to late 80s period is spent mourning, grappling with depression.

In comes a Dr. Landy, a controversial psychiatrist who made the first major breakthrough for Brian in years. Strict medication regiment, eclectic, trendy diets to cut all the way down from 315 pounds to a clean 170. Completely subservient to Landy now, Brian heads back into the studio(s) to cut his first solo album. Eugene Landy is credited as executive producer and co-writer on a good chunk of these songs. This is why it gets this mention here, how detached this is from any reality. Brian is an incredibly talented shell, hollowed out by drugs and mental illness, filled back up with Dr. Landy - hijacking his mind like something covered in spores from The Last of Us. He has spares no expense on Wilson's bank account by setting a million dollar budget, traveling across the world to 8+ studios. The result is the best Brian Wilson had sounded since Pet Sounds over luxuriously dated synths picked by a talentless Phil Spector impersonator. Not much better of a man than he was either. Melt Away, Love And Mercy are two standouts. The latter accompanied by a fat, obnoxious synth. It's funny how the return to form album for the quintessential summer musician has the coldest atmosphere, almost like a winter level in a video game.
 
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Brian and Dennis Wilson by this point in 1982 had accepted death, defeated by their addictions, ashamed of themselves. Dennis would not too shortly after these recordings die, during a stretch of homelessness, burning whatever bridges remained in his personal and professional life. These recordings, lo-fi to the point of sounding like it takes place in a shower, display this sorry state. Two downtrodden artists who have been given up on by the people around them and themselves, at a friend's house screwing around on organ and piano. The pretty songs here would not be what you would expect to hear, if you pressed your ears to the door, eavesdropping on another vice session, but instead getting an ambient pop, at times proto Frank Ocean/James Blake sound. The lo-fi quality just makes it heartbreaking and ethereal, seeing genius smothered by their deteriorated state. Rumor has it that in this quasi studio, Dennis would coax Brian into singing on another track by offering him a McDonald's cheeseburger in-between. Brian would in turn look the other way as Dennis snorted a fat rail, hence the name Cocaine Sessions. Usually I post individual songs and comment on why they're good, but in this case I am just going to post the entire album, clocking in at under 20 minutes. It isn't something I can listen to often, I get teary eyed. If you've ever been an addict and tried to perform at your worst, not necessarily at this level or even artistically, just at a job; this bootleg will walk all over you.

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(Credit to a Reddit user named u/proffessorpeterplum as I jack his minimalist album cover contribution for the White Album on the Beatles subreddit)




The Beatles are the most famous band to ever exist, really including them here in this thread takes the purpose away, it's a spot that could be given to a more obscure artist. If you're a more casual fan of the band however, and find yourself overwhelmed (lol) by the massive reissues of their classic material lately, well, you should make time for the Esher Demos. Primitive recordings that, unlike the Wilson bootleg, are recorded in a state of joy. A trip to India that meant different things to different Beatles led to their creative juices flowing, especially Lennon, who shines here. The little trail off comments at the end of the songs, like John riffing on Dear Prudence about Prudence losing her mind to the Maharashi. Though these songs are mostly all classics, some sound fresher here than other interpretations. Glass Onion pops when unplugged and is just sort of there on regular album, though I've always enjoyed the song. The main event here is the demos for cut tracks like Circles, and the revelatory Sour Milk Sea, their vocals blending so prettily, rendering the actual Sour Milk Sea that they provided backing vocals for, gifted to an inconsequential Jackie Lomax, totally obsolete. These demos are essentially a White Album Unplugged, and have a coziness to them lost during the tumultuous Get Back sessions months later.

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Lazy Smoke's one and only album has a reputation in the underground rock vinyl scene as a top shelf collectors item, not usually what I talk about here, but it should be noted that even in the competitive year for psychedelia that was 1968, Lazy Smoke managed to stand out, if only in retrospect. Why I paired this with The Beatles should be evident to anyone who bothers listening. A McCartney clone with a Lennon inflection, the lead singer is a quaint hybrid of the best songwriting duo ever. How are the songs? They're there! Nothing groundbreaking here, and it's truly sad to me that they did not have at least one follow up to grow into their shoes, but listen to Under Skys, repetitive sure, yet enthralling as an ode to beautiful summer days in the tree shade. Sarah Saturday is like a mid 60s McCartney tune dipped in acid. If you close your eyes, maybe with a joint or two, you've got a lost Beatles record to dive into, one that compliments the Esher demos well as a companion piece.

As a bonus, I'd like to throw in a song from guitar legends The Ventures, who in 1964(!) dropped this deep cut on their album, it absolutely rips. Predates that early Heavy Metal scene by several years and already has that sound. The 60s are like that if you look hard enough.

 
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Zany Clowny

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In the early 2010s, I was still sinking time into San Andreas Multiplayer, and in the tail end of this little obsession I became acquainted with some friends from Denmark. On Skype one night, stoned to oblivion, they played Yung Lean. As someone who adored autotune even when it was still having its merits debated by music listeners post T-Pain, I immediately wanted to hear more and in exchange, I played Kid Cudi and Bones. They were good on Cudi; as I got deeper into that Memphis revival scene - $B, Slim Guerilla - leaving Lean behind. In retrospect, it was a waste of time. As Lean has continued to improve, the Memphis inspired SoundCloud scene stagnate further.

With the vaporwave aesthetics out of fashion and far behind him, Lean incorporates heavily from the ambient psychedelic vapors of his contemporaries, mainly Kid Cudi and Travis Scott. Songs like "Butterfly Paralyzed" mirror "Swim in the Light" on Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin' in composition and lyricism. Starz accelerates the hallucinogens, whereas Cudi seems to have finally mastered his shroom dosage. The more uptempo numbers have a light industrial touch to them, HEALTH wrapped in a soft green blanket. "Acid in 7/11" is disorienting, addictive, otherworldly, an example of the higher stakes, I'm off my mind on drugs and lost somewhere in Scandinavia vibe - yet comforting still, somehow.

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Kid Cudi took the ass beating of a lifetime from every would be music critic for the poor crossover attempt at grunge rock, Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven. It was complicated by Andre 3000 calling it one of the best album of the past couple years at that point. This all became too much combined with the drug use and untreated depression, so a lengthy rehab admission was in order, preceded by a painful confession on the part of Cudi that he had been deeply unwell for years following the release of his second album. He would suffer a stroke in rehab that further set him back.

Returning to music was difficult, and the process was almost as miserable as Speedin' Bullet, but the sound was much clearer on Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin. Nocturnal, moody, hum filled soundscapes that reference redemption, drug use, his career. Prelude to the KSG staple Reborn is the meditative "Swim in the Light" that is aquatic and tragic and uplifting all at once, later down the tracklist is "All In" that continues that ascension to the surface of the ocean, finally breaking through on "Surfin" in the process resembling a lost Beach Boys track. The opener, Frequency, is the most glaring psych entry on the album, but don't count out "iLLusions" as it acts as the microdosed sequel to "Trapped in my Mind" from MOTM2.
 
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