So What Is Psychedelic In Music?

Introduction

This is a definition taken from Google:

Psychedelia is a style or aesthetic encompassing a range of art, music, and dress associated with the 1960s psychedelic subculture. The term can also refer to the altered state of consciousness experienced by people using psychedelic drugs like LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin.

Characteristics

Music

Distorted electric guitar, Indian instruments like the sitar and tabla, electronic effects, and elaborate studio effects

Art

Distorted, surreal visuals, bright colors, full spectrums, and animation

Dress

Style of dress associated with the 1960s psychedelic subculture

Here I am concentrating on music, although the AI Art I used for this piece took the prompt "Psychedelic Music". I often find that much of the music classed as psychedelic sounds fairly mainstream to me, I am looking for something maybe strange, unexpected, even mind-bending.

Sometimes it's the words and sometimes it's the sounds and sometimes they combine.

I expect will disagree with many of my choices and I will miss many pieces but I hope that you find at least one piece here that you agree with.

The Moody Blues - "Legend Of A Mind" from "In Search Of The Lost Chord"

The subject is Timothy Leary and while the starts off fairly mainstream, by the end your mind takes off with the music, and the sound of the mellotron taking us to the wonderful finale.

Hawkwind - "Seeing It As You Really Are"

From their debut album, this, with its hypnotic backbeat and simple guitar motif is ten minutes audio tripping, that has not lost its power for me since I first heard it in the seventies.

Jefferson Airplane - "White Rabbit" from "Surrealistic Pillow"

With its tango time signature, and surrealist Lewis Carrol's "Alice In Wonderland" influenced lyrics this is a perfect slice of psychedelia without any electronic effects

Nirvana - "Rainbow Chaser"

The main song is almost gentle, but it has added monstrous phasing effects that take it way out of the mainstream and into the psychedelic universe.

Amon Düül II - "Race from Here to Your Ears" from "Dance Of The Lemmings"

This was part of "Restless Skylight Transistor Child" that took up side two of the album and itself was split into three parts.

"Little Tornadoes"

"Overheated Tiara"

"The Flyweighted Five"

The guitar sound alone makes this psychedelia for me.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)" from "Electric Ladyland"

From the first seconds of this you are is some magical universe with sounds of some post armageddon world, this is definitely mind expanding using electronic and stereo effects.

Pink Floyd - "Main Theme" from the film "More"

Most people will not know this, is steals in furtively, before launching into one of my favourite speaker swapping pieces and that really does twist your mind while the simple main theme is picked out on a minimalist keyboard. This must be listened to in stereo.

Gong - "A Sprinkling Of Clouds" from "You"

One to listen to on headphones or in the dark to let your mind wander in places it never knew existed.

The Grateful Dead - "Dark Star"

This sounds so ethereal, and I could not have a psychedelic playlist without the Grateful Dead.

John Martyn - "One World"

Again this just lets you drift away in a sea of infused beauty. Psychedelic? It is certainly well out there.

Fripp & Eno - "The Heavenly Music Corporation I" from "No Pussyfooting"

I used to listen to this after imbibing lots of alcohol and let it take me to unimaginable places on my dream walks. Hypnotic drone but sure Timothy Leary would approve.

The Beatles - "I Am The Walrus" from "The Magical Mystery Tour"

I will use this to close this psychedelic playlist. The Fab Four were certainly under certain influences for this.

Thank you for reading, and listening.

Please tell me what I have missed in the comments.