Floralia Vol.3
(Various Artists)

 

Wot 4 Records Compilation CD
Wot 4 (WOT4CD99003)
1999


   
 
  1. Cosmic Gardeners (Ger) - "Moment Opens Moment" (5.06)
  2. AMP (UK) - "Left It" - 4.36
  3. Korai Öröm (Hun) - "Welcome To The Hippie Future" (7.06)
  4. Tom Kazas (Aus) - Shadows Of White - (4.52)
  5. OHM (USA) - "Super Breakout" - (6.10)
  6. In The Labyrinth (Swe) - "Sagarmatha" - (5.08)
  7. Smoking The Century Away (Mex) - "Professing The Non-pasteurized" - (5.57)
  8. This Fluid (Gre) - "Joni's Sweet Echo" - (4.38)
  9. Acid Mothers Temple And The Melting Pot Paraiso U.F.O (Jap) - "Psycho Karman" (5.45)
  10. Magic Carpathians (Pol) - "First Step Into The Mountain" (4.53)
  11. Le Forbici Di Manitu (Ita) - "Division 6" (4.48)
  12. Ectogram (UK) - "Ochenaid Llesg" (5.37)
  13. Tombstone Valentine (USA) -"The Web" (5.22)
  14. Alquima (Mex - UK) - "Floralia" (6.24)


 
 
The Earth is blooming with psychedelic music as well as flowers. Confluences, mutations, contamination, migrations of sounds in motion on the footsteps of new/ancient dances ignited by the lightest touch, just enough to bring forth change.
And Floralia begins her third leg in a journey of continuing sonic discoveries expressed by planetary realities where Mother Earth's regenerating spitit, coming from a distant pagan festival, tunes in its perfumed effusion.

 
 


The press said...
 
 


V/A - FLORALIA VOLUME 3

(CD on Wot 4, PO Box 68, 7700 Dedemsvaart, The Netherlands)
V/A - MUSHROOM MUSIC MONOLITHS
(LP on Swamp Room Records, Auf Dem Loh 18, 30167 Hannover, Germany)

Both these collections of latter-day psychedelic nuggets owe much to the singular minds and energy of individual collectors, Giampiero Fleba on the one lobe and Willem Kucharzik on the other, both men of impeccable taste and no real reason for doing this other than that they dig all the bands involved. Which is, if you ask me, the best reason of all. I like compilations with no particular axe to grind, Eugene and firmly believe that each should be taken on its own merits - so comparisons between Floralia 3 and its two predecessors are utterly pointless and you'd never get me to admit that this is nothing like as good as Volume 2, for instance. I do though get the impression that a few of the bands have donated songs which might he termed "outtakes", which doesn't do anyone any particular favours, least of all the artists themselves. The roll-call is impressive however, with the Cosmic Gardeners, Amp, Korai Orom, Tom Kazas (late of the Moffs), Acid Mothers Temple, the Magic Carpathians and, Tombstone Valentine all being familiar and noteworthy. For all that, it's down to two "new" acts to run away with the honours here: Sweden's In the Labyrinth lay down an Eastern trip on sitar and tablas and weave spacey female vocals and fuzzed guitar throughout and all around it on their brilliant 'Sagamartha' (apparently the Nepalese name for Mount Everest) - they have an album out entitled 'Walking on Clouds' which I immediately placed on my personal shopping list - and Wales' Ectogram bring to mind Pop Off Tuesday getting into a VU drone on 'Ochenaid llesg'. No surprise then that the band are related to the Serpents, lauded elsewhere this column. Swamp Room's 'Mushroom Music Monoliths' pasteurises the cream of Europe, with only two American acts (one of those Dead Moon, who treat Germany as a second home anyway) and a couple of itinerant Brits holding their own particular freak flag aloft. The outstanding track comes from the Mind Kiosk, about whom 1 know nothing except they're, a German hand and sound like they'd have been just as at home in the Roundhouse in '72, with elements of Man and Mighty Baby bubbling eerily through the mix. The whole of side 2 of this record in fact sounds like a long-lost 'Greasy Truckers' collection - the Mandragora Light Show Society's 'Floating at the Gates of Dawn' even finds them jamming with Nik Turner, recorded at one of those marvellously surreal Hawkfan meetings which somehow could only ever take place in Germany. The A-side, which contains more concise pearls of psychedelic wisdom, features Sweden's Mother Superior who kick out the marmalade in fine Alchemysts style, Eatable Love & Fliegenpilz who throw just about every psychedelic cliche in the recipe book to create a wonderfully strange brew and Elanco who sounds like a Germanic Mick Crossley which is no bad thing in itself. Both these albums are well worth a gamble, particularly if you're assembling a radio show and looking for latter-day psychedelia from around the world.

Phi] - PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE (Italy) - Early 2000 issue