THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,191) The Astral Projection — “Today I Saw the Sunrise”
“[O]ne of those weirdly compelling pop albums that could have only emanated from the Age of Aquarius. . . . with moments of pure delight that bring the ’60s experience back in full technicolor.” (Stanton Swihart, https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-astral-scene-mw0000069459)”[T]his LP is one to set the lights down low on and turn on the Lava Lamps!!!” (Bomp!, https://www.bompstore.com/astral-projection-the-astral-scene-1968-pop-psych-get-out-the-lava-lamps-cd/) Yeah, baby!
Scott Blackerby tells us:
An oddity fallilng somewhere between Curt Boettcher-styled sunshine pop, Association type Top 40, and Animated egg exploito. . . . [It was] a full-fledged concept piece. . . . something to do with the concept of escaping the physical body to experience spiritual embodiment. In spite of the goofy title and lyrics (“Today, I saw the sunrise”) and the fact that the arrangements were full of rather spacey instrumentation, virtually all of the songs were quite commercial.
The Acid Archives, The Second Edition
Beverly Paterson adds:
Composed of studio musicians, most notably the late great guitarist Hugh McCracken, who played with everybody from the Monkees to Simon to Garfunkel to Van Morrison to Steely Dan to John Lennon, the Astral Projection existed for just this one album. As their name implied, the band championed leaving the body. . . . The Astral Scene . . . profiles the beauty, joy and warmth attained when discarding our physical being. No chemical substances are promoted, as the lyrics impress such journeys can be attained from within and life itself is a natural high. Heavily orchestrated and glistening with birdsong harmonies and melodies, The Astral Scene rests firmly on the soft-rock wing occupied by the Cowsills, the Association and the Blades of Grass. The production values are clean and sparkly, the structures are adventurous enough to prompt repeated spins, and the performances are disciplined and proportioned. . . . Rhythms drift, float and soar, and the textures of the tunes are flush with color and motion. Pumping big brass sounds, string arrangements and flower pop motifs into a single blender, The Astral Scene rolls in as an early indication of new age music. Brain food for the ears, the disc is certainly a curious period piece.
Stanton Swihart:
A conceptual undertaking meant to reveal the wondrous cycle of the telepathic phenomenon of astral projection. The album somehow manages to communicate the complex precepts of astral experience in lay terms and remain deliciously frothy pop at the softest, most easy-listening end of the spectrum. It works the same sonic conceit as the Fifth Dimension (only in lily-white, soul-lite mode) or the stable of bands . . . produced or helmed by Curt Boettcher, only without the countercultural credibility and legitimately trippy factor. That’s because the album, as with dozens of similar efforts from the era, is really a quasi-exploitive cash-in project. Essentially a studio creation conceived and written by Bernice Ross and Lor Crane, who did not take part in the actual recording . . . . The playing was done by ace sessionmen . . . and then the music overlaid with delicate strings, and a brass and woodwind section. In a sense, it entirely missed the thrust of the decade’s more original and exploratory music that it meant to exploit. But in another cosmically ironic sense, it captures the heady era far more vibrantly than those more important artists, partly because the music of the Astral Projection is nowhere near as timeless as the music of those artists. And partly because the explosive creativity of the era filtered in weird and wonderful ways even down to the eternally unhip music business types responsible for this album, giving them carte blanche to experiment with the money formula, but not too much, thereby resulting in this odd hybrid of commercially minded but ultimately uncommercial music. . . . The Astral Scene is largely soft-pop ambience.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-astral-scene-mw0000069459
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Can’t say I knew there was an “astral scene”, Astral Weeks sure.
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