PsychedelicMusic

Quora Answer : What is the best psychedelic music?

Sep 2, 2018

Just to supplement Yvette Renshy's excellent selection.

I was turned on to psychedelia by being a fan of "The Shamen" who started as a slightly retro sounding indie-rock band, but in the late 80s soon embraced emerging acid house and rave culture. And by the 90s were massive as rather kitsch ravers.

However SDD 89, an acid house refix of their earlier "Strange Days Dream" is just about the perfect attempt at a synthesis of the 60's psychedelic aesthetic they were reviving with the new electronic psychedelia that was going to take over in the next 5 years.

And talking of the 80s, I want to give a shout-out to Ozric Tentacles, who, in retrospect managed to create a truly bizarre blend of easy listening 80s synth rock / world music with a tougher acid rock under tow.

Too much of this stuff will make you sick. But a little bit in the right mood will take you on a tour around the Milky Way.

If you want some proper 60s classics :

13th Floor Elevators - Slip Inside This House

Axe - The Child Dreams

Bobby Beausoleil's soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising

And into the 70s

Gong - I Never Glid Before

It's also worth checking out what was going on in that late 60s, early 70s period outside more "mainstream" rock. There was an incredible trippy experimentalism and innovation to get you into altered states of consciousness.

Here' La Monte Young & The Theatre of Eternal Music's "The Fire Is A Mirror" from 63

And Terry Riley's "Rainbow in Curved Air"

And cosmic Jazz was fire. Check out Alice Coltrane