Space and Time: A Compendium of the Orange Alabaster Mushroom

Artist: The Orange Alabaster Mushroom
Label: Hidden Agenda
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 795306502920
EAN: 0795306502920
ASIN: B00005OLEN

Release Date: 2002-01-01

Space and Time: A Compendium of the Orange Alabaster Mushroom

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Garage Rock

Neo-Psychedelia

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Your Face Is In My Mind
(We Are) The Orange Alabaster Mushroom
Tree Pie
Crazy Murray
Another Place
Rainbow Man
Ethel Tripped A Mean Gloss
Valerie Vanillaroma
Space & Time
The Slug
Sunny Day
Aim The Vimana Toward The Dorian Sector
Mister Day
Gone
Sydney's Electric Headcheese Sundial

Similar Items:

Indian Winter

Customer Reviews:

Spacey "Time".......2005-04-07

Before Neutral Milk Hotel, the Apples in Stereo and Of Montreal became the thing, there was... the Orange Alabaster Mushroom. This lo-fi psychedelic band, headed by Canadian artist Greg Watson, is one of the most enchantingly offbeat pieces of nu-psychedelica in existance. It's probably the best sixties album made in the 90s.

"Space & Time: A Compendium" brings together all the old recordings from the 1990s, and compiles them in chronological order. It opens with "(We Are) The Orange Alabaster Mushroom," a trippy, catchy little ditty wreathed in fuzz and sunniness. It's kind of hard to hear exactly what Watson is singing, though. Then again, who cares? The swirling, trippy music speaks for itself.

After that, Watson dabbles in hard-guitar pop, sparkling psychedelic melodies, ethereal pop, echoing vocal effects, sitar, swirling Mellotron ditties, and other songs that hint at the golden age of psychpop. It sounds like an acid-induced collision between the Zombies, the Beatles, and Pink Floyd, taking the best of each band and melding them together.

Greg Watson shuns the major-label route that many artists take, preferring to record in his home and release the Orange Alabaster Mushroom on indie labels. Sticking to his principles -- and his love of his work -- is understandable, and definitely a good thing. The downside of this is that his work has not achieved the fame of Jeff Mangum or Kevin Barnes, though it definitely could be considered the best of retro-psychpop. If he were signed on to a major label, Watson would doubtlessly be hailed as the savior of psychpop.

Since it was originally on cassette, the music is very lo-fi; occasionally Watson's guitar sounds rather hollow. However, the acoustic guitar is also the heart of the album, with buzzing bass, swirling mellotron, and the odd sitar melody spinning around it. The resulting sound is lush and complex, while remaining lo-fi enough that it never sounds overpolished.

Greg Watson sings pretty well, but his rather reedy voice is swamped in the exquisite melodies. Occasionally it's hard to even tell what he's saying. However, his voice is used more as an instrument than a centerpiece; in one song, his vocals are distorted into echoes, adding to the eerie feel of the music. It's a magnificent piece of work.

The Orange Alabaster Mushroom is probably the best nu-psychedelica album that the Elephant 6 people never made. Rich, sunny and delightfully strange, this is an underrated gem.

One of the Best Psychedelic Albums Today.......2003-09-16

I just picked up The Orange Alabaster Mushroom compilation Space and Time from Amazon. com. I was just blown away. Greg Watson is one of the best interpreters of the classic psychedelic sound I've ever heard. The collection is a wonderful hybrid of American Garage Psych with English underground and whimsy. Watson takes the best of these worlds and spreads them out like a buffet. You name it, fuzz guitar rave ups, backwards effects, nutty lyrics that do not take themselves seriously, nice Barrett hooks, surf guitar, it's in there. The love for the music is there. Original songs with a classic sound.

One of the best albums I've heard this year. If you love psychedelia, here it is.

Tangerine Plastered Toadstools.......2001-11-03

One of the true psychedelic gems to come down the pike since Syd took up gardening full-time...

Every song on this record is brilliant, and calls to mind the more demented moments of The Dukes of Stratosphere along with the garagier aspects of early Olivia Tremor Control.

If you are into 60's-style psychedelia in this brave new millennium, there are but two names to look for: one is John McBain (Wellwater Conspiracy) and the other is Greg Watson, author - omniscient envoy and acid crazed madman of the Mushroom.

Run to your record store and demand this record be stocked in the "O" section, amid the Oasis and Orange Juice CDs. It deserves no less, and so much more...

A thousand words are hardly enough..........2001-10-31

I first heard this music toward the end of 2000, driving home from work through one of the worst snow storms I have ever encountered. Traffic was stop-and-go, mostly stop, and I had no music with me. I resorted to the radio, something I usually hate to do. I found a local university station (CKCU in Ottawa) and caught the beginning of a special profile on indie artist Greg Watson, driving force behind the Orange Alabaster Mushroom (OAM). Of course, at the time, I had no idea exactly what I was hearing, only that it vaguely reminded me of things I'd heard before: the Beatles, the [Canadian] Grapes of Wrath, and Tears for Fears. But where those groups had just hinted at psychedelia, OAM used it as a starting point. The music has a swirling, transportational quality. The lyrics are clever, but unpretentious, never taking themselves too seriously; they're all in good fun.

I pulled the car into a strip-mall parking lot, and let the windows ice over as I sat listening, relishing every moment, hoping it would never end. Greg Watson reminded me how much fun music could be.

The half-hour profile was over far too soon, and I quickly jotted down everything I could remember the DJ saying about the band.

Later that night, armed with phrases like "Space and Time", "Ethyl Triptamine", and "Orange Alabaster Mushroom", I hit the Internet to learn more. I immediately ordered the vinyl edition of "Space & Time" (the only version of the album then availabe).

The good got even better when I later learned that purchasers of the vinyl were entitled to download bonus tracks free of charge in MP3 format.

For the following year, I'd been spinning a homemade CD copy of that record: at home, in the car, even at work. My friends and family came to know the OAM's music (whether they wanted to or not). My daughter became particularly fond of "Valerie Vanillaroma".

But to be honest, I've never been 100% happy with that copy. My turntable is old, the transfer was problematic, and the noise reduction was less than satisfactory. The resulting disc gave new meaning to the term "lo-fi".

This CD changes all of that. The sound is perfect. The artwork is faithfully reproduced from the vinyl sleeves. The unnamed vinyl track is now named. And the CD includes some of the bonus tracks!

Sure, it's the greatest hits of an artist you've never heard of before, but at least these hits are truly great.

Music Album:

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Telepathy ~ Ron Carter

Conscious Mind ~ Chizuko Yoshihiro

Brooklyn Moods ~ Jr. Karel Ruzicka

Multiple Personalities

Warming Up! ~ Billy Taylor

Biografia Do Fado ~ Alfredo Marceneiro

Strelik Idut Vperiod ~ Strelki

Forro Universitario ~ Sabino Do Acordeon

Guinness Instrumentals 6 ~ Various Artists

Proposiciones ~ Pablo Milanes