THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,628) The Plastic Cloud — “Epistle to Paradise”
This Canadian pop psych/folk rock gem is a glimpse of the Plastic Cloud’s (see #172) “dreamy, softer folk-rock side … a nice trippy production and attractive ringing guitars” (Jason, https://therisingstorm.net/the-plastic-cloud-the-plastic-cloud/), with “Byrds-like harmonies . . . sound[ing] like a more ornate and trippier follow-up to ‘Renaissance Fair’ coupled with ‘Here Without You’”. (Bruce Eder, https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-plastic-cloud-mw0000309274)
Allied Records’ press release informed the buying public (what there was of it) that:
[“Epistle”] a very deceptive song. It makes you feel very secure if you don’t understand it, and a little wary if you do. The cloud is telling you that you can live any way you want to, but don’t try to “trade their minds” for your particular way of life. You[r] epistle to happiness may just not be theirs.
Allied Record Co. News Note, liner notes to the CD reissue of The Plastic Cloud
Patrick Lunsford says of their sole LP — The Plastic Cloud — that:
The Canadian late 1960s freak scene produced several terrific LPs and here’s one of the ultimates, with an appeal to both garage fuzz-heads and psych album collectors. The mix of dreamy [West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (see #197, 488, 1,267)]-style vocals with ripping fuzz and sub-Dylanesque lyrics works better than one might imagine possible, and the LP gains appeal from its youthful basement edge. This is one of the big, mandatory pieces of the field . . . .
The Acid Archives, 2nd Ed.
Bruce Eder writes that:
The Plastic Cloud’s self-titled album is a strangely compelling and overall delightful mix of West Coast ’60s sounds, without any two songs sounding exactly alike, or even displaying the same attributes. Not that any fan of that era will mind any of it . . . . [Its] all enjoyable and full of pleasant surprises. . . . They were signed to Allied Records in Ontario and got one self-titled LP out which, sadly enough, never found an audience, despite beautiful production and some bold, ambitious use of psychedelic effects. Their vocals were pretty and they played better than that, and the results, with a sympathetic producer in charge, were mighty impressive — their one album is worth hearing a lot more than once, and you get the feeling that if these guys had been working out of, say, L.A. or the Bay Area and been signed to a label with some real marketing power, they’d be a lot more than a footnote today with exactly the music they did leave behind.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-plastic-cloud-mw0000309274, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-plastic-cloud-mn0000894455#biography
Michael Panontin adds:
Brewer penned all eight songs on The Plastic Cloud, which like most of the records released by Jack Boswell on Allied was extremely limited, with allegedly just 500 copies pressed up. The album sort of feels like two discs in one, bookending the summer of love with alternating mid-sixties folk-rock gems and extended tracks of blistering late-sixties guitar work. The somewhat wooden harmonies on ‘Epistle to Paradise’ . . . [is a] fine example[] of the former, recalling the pre-psychedelic work of the early (pre-Grace Slick) Airplane or the starry-eyed folk of the Youngbloods. . . . According to RPM, the group had “taken a plunge into the unwelcome world of Canadian originality for which they deserve an ‘A’ for effort”. . . . [The LP] drifted into the bargain bins without much notice.
Jason adds:
[Their] sole album has languished in obscurity. Psych fans and collectors remain divided, however: collectors consider Plastic Cloud one of Canada’s best psych albums (or indeed the best from anywhere) while some jaded day-trippers merely find it just ok/nothing special. . . . At first listen I was not impressed with the Plastic Cloud’s only offering. After reading all the hype about mind-jarring fuzz guitars and John Lennon-like vocals I found the disc rather mediocre and unimpressive. After several more spins I began to appreciate the band’s intensity and lysergic charm: this disc truly does deliver the goods if you’re into hardcore, late-night psych sounds. . . . While not a major classic, Plastic Cloud is surely one of the better Canadian psych albums and is consistently good throughout. . . . these guitar tones coil, uncoil, and burrow deep into your head like all great psych guitar solos should.
https://therisingstorm.net/the-plastic-cloud-the-plastic-cloud/
As to the Cloud, Michael Panontin tells us:
[T]he Plastic Cloud (from Bay Ridges in present-day Pickering) recorded [a] superb and highly sought-after psychedelic LP[] for the Allied label . . . . There hasn’t been a lot of ink spilled on the Plastic Cloud, and so the group remains one of the true remaining mysteries out there in the Canuck cyberlands. The group were a four-piece led by their 22-year-old guitarist and lead vocalist Don Brewer, with guitarist Mike Cadieux, bassist Brian Madill and drummer Randy Umphrey rounding things out. They formed in 1967, and by the tail end of 1968 . . . the guys had issued their only LP . . . .
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