Piccadilly Sunshine Part 2: British Pop Psych and Other Flavours 1966-1971

One of the occupational hazards of writing and performing psychedelic music is that it's hard to describe common hallucinogenic phenomena without sounding silly, and it's all the more difficult when you're just making up your visions without having touched any consciousness-expanding materials. Piccadilly Sunshine Part 2: British Pop Psych and Other Flavors collects 20 rare sides from acts who appear to have learned about LSD second-hand, and thankfully they weren't afraid to dive into the deep end of absurdity, which is a big part of what makes this disc lots of fun. If you're going to write songs like "The Fantastic Story of the Steam-Driven Banana," "She Wanders Through My Mind," or "Pepper Grinder," you may as well go for the gusto, and while the songwriters and producers were clearly trying to make their way onto the charts with this stuff, they didn't hesitate to let their lyrics get crazy, and the result is a set of top-shelf pop with a fictive lysergic undertow bubbling through the lyrics and melodies. Sasha Caro's "Never Play a B-Side" is a slice of just-spooky-enough weirdness written and produced by Cat Stevens, the Kool deliver an impressive cover of the American Breed's "Step Out Of Your Mind," Perfect People's "House in the Country" is a tasty bit of uptempo pop with a faux-psych arrangement, "Alexander Bell Believes" is some sort of statement of purpose from a vocalist trading as Alexander Bell (maybe he was considering a run for office) and "Provocative Child" from Zuider Zee is thankfully playful enough to take the edge off the slightly creepy lyrical conceit. Along with some hard to find songs that are actually worth hearing, Piccadilly Sunshine Part 2 presents this material in good fidelity, and the liner notes are witty and informative; if you're looking for a set of fun, faux freakbeat, this disc will deliver your poison straight up. ~ Mark Deming