Friday, June 23, 2023

Wax of the Week #65...v/a: The American Standard (1971)

I reviewed this for the Acid Archives book, so I’ll just reproduce the review here…

Pretty interesting double college LP that's made up of two sides of poetry and two sides of music. For the most part, even though much of it is given a psychedelic tinge with some trippy studio effects, the poetry sides (which include black, gay, and sci-fi themes) evoke little interest, save for "Death of Ulysses," effectively recited in a Long John Silver accent over a raga psych background. "St. James Infirmary," "Foreign Legion Blues," and "Ninety Nine" are unremarkable basement jazz/blues with long guitar and sax solos, but the instrumental "Death of the Lord High Executioner" gets into decent, Traffic-like jazz rock zones. Side three is where the heat is: "The Arm/Invocation and Main Theme" is a long, interesting piece of lysergic free jazz given additional appeal with more tape effects as the song moves along; modern noise/improv heads would flip if they heard it (Roland Kirk and Sun Ra are thanked). "Havens but Not Much" is a satisfying, almost Dead-like instrumental jam driven by acoustic guitar, with electric guitar, drums, and bass providing a exploratory accompaniment. "John Riley" is a nice piece of British folk with male harmonies. If just the music was issued as a single LP this probably would have gotten a lot more attention, but it's still worth looking for.

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