UllN ofT your mind. the Rame exlstence to the nrnl ... of l\>lpplll1;lthe Hey man - it's time to beat that relax and float the beginning". light ' __ aile downstream.··· An explicit assault on contemp- ••• "'"kFloyd cosmic tabla and slap on a droning There are few com- orary perrept ion, a manifesto for a .tAII5-ftlnt •• tape Drug-infused psychedelia, mands more simple different kiml of consciousness. the Hallin IDe!! loop, and evocative. They came to .John track is timoless. Thirty years 1:\trr, (.bo .•.•••nd says Jon Savage, never went away Lennon nfter an LSD trip at the its influence is everywhere in rock: Kul.Shak.r turn of 196.')/66, during which h("d there ClTC echoes in Oasts's Mornlng (below left); tar used a hook as a RUide. Edited hy Glory ("Ii$tcning to the sound of my right, 1Ir." 'or Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Iavour-lte tunc"). the accented drum Paych~.lIe Richard Alpert. The Psychedelic. loops of The Chemical Brothers' Circus, 1903 Experience; A Manual Based On Sett ing Sun. tho Eastern sonorities (D""I.y's, The Tibetan Book Of The Dend and psychic propaganda of Kula London); and, ,.he aimed to givl" a framework to the Shaker's album K, I"•• tri\lhl. explicitly experimental use or this in its equat ion of druas + aurnl Sp.etrum. new (Iru)!.I.sn. Inops = trnnsrondenco. Tomorrow 1089 CUe lIVen, At the end of The Bcatles' album. Never Knows also prefig\.u"f'$ ((\C1:tY's ~~_J _ Revolver; Tomorrow Never Knows dance culture. where trance. drum MAIN rt401()(',fW'H made public what had been, until 'n'bass and new acid recombine psy- ~K[EN then. the Pn"SCIVC of a few CIA <:hedelic ictt~as and sounds. Dance spooks, academics and bohemian shops dh:pJ:1)" Ilyers with computer West Coast musicians. The ~~nie psvcuo-lmaacrv and ,1'f'COrdS with sound was out of the bottle: psychedella tltles like HeU,.I.li",,: Back From had arr-ived. Tlu' Future. Phantasm III: Futur« JII lHI;n, Tomorrow Never Ill-lych('1it'lic 'l'rnuce, FI'j~t YIHlr • Hearl. Eni1emic Vo111, or, most i-xpllc- Knows sounded llke nothing The Beatles hnd ever recorded: not for illy. LSll hy Hnlluclnoar-n, nothin)...~s Its workinJ! lille The Nrnrly :1.0Y~1H'~ "flf"r 19(i7's Sum- vout. Bt'j.1inninlot with a tnmbourn mer or l.ov(· _.. a phmsr- unw Inuit" f CI drone. tfir track resolves Into n murked hy lilt' IHlI' Crahnm rnnnlcnlly pumping Paul Mrt'nrt- Orgnnlsnnon ~.. ~)~}'\IH"(Ir'lta Is bar-k: ney bnssllue nnd ' n Ringo Starr if it over wont Away. Apart frnm Its drum loop RO ma!o>slv(\ HUll, A~ Inn ouutnu«! 1)()JlI't~UI'W'n('(I. it l'l thc-' Mnr.DonnJd noh's in He·volul ion In ~HhJ(·('t of s/~\'rml IU'W books: .llm Th('! Hond. II sounds Jlkr "n rxuuulc I)" U{)~Ati~'r:. ;U) yenr tl\'Pl'vicolJ.', tnbtn IIlaYI'll hy n Vrdle dotty }{fllPlilor.('(lpc' FVI't4, ~lilttIH'w rhthi~ in n !IIOrill dtall'''. COlII,l1S'U ' tandnuu k 1I1..:lory of Tlwn comes till! rtret of t1Vt' 1~1l~1· !;.!rsta~v (;1.111\11'1'. 1\11(,•.•'>(1 SIII\t'!\, 1\11(1 h!F1~ly "('II(':Ilh'5( Inl~ hX1PS, n !Wn· ~Ill'nh .CIHl11lphm'!=I ~'tllli~·'lonnf nuH·llkr ~\\'(kIP,IWj.{UIIlK Inlo 1\ "new nc'!toll (hU" flu' dll'I\lII'ul H"II- fA'llIUHI\',)j"nlJlltt'lu>rl to ~nund 11I((. ,.nUI",," J)1~1'(l1H~1·I1H~••.•••lIh ~hj)rl n IllAIHINI rhoh' or Tjbotun I1U)lIk~, tllol'l~ h~ .)rlT NO(1I1,Mm'"'' Mtllnl' Unlikr mnst )lop rrf'Ol'tt!ll ur Ihr RlUllr\'ln,. WC'll'Ih, tlnh-, 'tomorrow N(>Vf'r KnOWM 111ft AllvrrlltttliK. t\t'Rljoln :Hut l'II1\1f'11f\ nol fulluw _n JhlNU' pn_!tt'rn h\lt IK)I'Rry (\1'1Ill'" Il1rtl~t'lI with Ih" 'wiRh~' Anti htrlu'1t Ilk •• R MtMlhhlN ~(ylt"" nl' !IIwll'l~; It ,','''lhulI'''" to j;llrlp, (~.,'nUHW; Ihl own thurt: ""IIW n",1 the' t~nmll\lttll' hHluo;,tl')': ~:\11\';OI, !"-C ••••nll<ln Friday January_3_1_H_f.,J_7 ~ ... In a world where everything vision is implicitly QlJcstloningof.1f shan" wilh the Inner Light, and was not hostile to, established systems Infinite in its significance." He saw and perceptions. As Irvine WeL,h the drug's effects In terms of a writes in The Undefeated: "Just do major realignment of perception: It now, Just chanl«' your life In the "somethlng more than, above nU spn"" of n hMrll.,at, do It now ..." somethmz diffenmt Hum, the care- This 18where We enter oontempo- fully selected utilitarian materta; rary time, Thet'll Is n llne, Only par- which our narrowed, individual tially delineated In Kaleidoscopic minds regard as a complete, or al ~;yef!,/\'om sixties psychedcliB to it.. least sufficient, picture of reality", contemporary mutntlons, II runs If you take this experience out of from the ll'lY origins of disco, the clinical or spiritual enclave and through late seventies Euro synth- put It In pop culture, you are going pop like Donna Summer and Gior- \0 hIM! 8 serious clash of values, gio Moroder', stilI unrivalled I Feel and this 18what happened In tile slx- Love, to mld-olghtles black dance ties, As Terence McKenna writes In music, Chicago house and Detroit Food Of The Gods, between 1947 and techno, whose earliest exponents, 1960 the maior indole hallucinogens like Larry Heard, Derrick May and were characterlsed, purllled and Juan Atkins, saw their function In Investigated. It is no coincidence visionary, psychedelic terms, that the subsequent decade was the In adapting the possibilities or most turbulent in. America for a digital technology - sequencers huncmdyears. .and synthesisers -r- to what had pre- vlously been a perception expressed LR.EADY.prevalent on.. in rock, they created the style and .·A. the West Coast, LSD approach that now dominates dance- arrived In the UK duro music. And when those early house ing - 1965, and was and lechno records - fabulous, adopted by pop stars minimal. spacey songs like Fingers like The Yardbirds, The Beatles and Inc's Mystery Of Love.- impacted Donovan, who sought to turn the with the increasing spread of Inner Light into sound, Despite the Ecstasy throughout Drltish club- fact that the main locus of the land trom 1966 onwards. psyche- emerging psychedelic style was delia again become a social San Francisco, particularly. the phenomenon, only this time it was bohemian Haight Ashbury cnclavo, called acid house, then Madchester, London also had n strong scene. raves, nndoow Ecsta$Y culture. based around bookshops like During the past 10 years, a gcn- - Indica, and groups like Pink Floyd, . oration barely porn in the sixties whose 1966 li~hl show call only be has Kone down a similar path to described as obliterating. flnc! that the questions posed by the Whereas the San Franclscan hippies all those years fl).!O have not style was folk and blues bas••l., pbeen answered: not at all. TIl(' story increasingly messianic aJ1{~ politi- of Ecstasy culture echoes the six- cised against the Vietnam wnr, the ties. Although the composition and, British added a pop spin in records effects or LSD and Ecstasy are like Strawberry Fields Forever and quite specific, there arc strong sim- The Piper At_The Gates Of !Jawn: ilnr'ltles: loss of ego, communal studio-based. inner-directed, but visions, altered perception. above all concentrating on the child. Them ls also a similar trajectory This is a perennial romantic the Netand virtual reality. And the fallacy 'bul .' powerful, and often nal Justice and Public Order Bill within a consorv nrlve body politlc. high sixties are still being mined: .useful,.one. TIle combined use of which. for the first time in living The Rijrht hasn't ~ucc('l'(Ic<1 in eradi- in the release of the first Tomor- cannabis, IA,)D ami mescalm In the . memory, legis-Iated against a part ic- cnting thr strong traces of tho six- row Never Knows on The Beatles' sixties unlocked a surge of pop ular form of music: the "repetitive tics: the law doesn't Sf\'('111 to stop Alltholo~y 2, in Ihe spoken-word creativity. Coinciding with the rise beats" of techno ami house. nnyour- taktna rnind-expnnrting CD histories of Paul Kantner (.Jef· of stereo hardware and SOnW<lI1' (lu- In many ways, Britain is R soci- drugs, nor do (he risks. Psychl~fclia ferson Airplane) and Hay Man- fi systems and lon~·playing records) ety divided in perception as never can he a form. it (':\1\ he a market inu zarek (The Doors), and in a major and a moment when youth seemed before: between those who use tool. it can 1)(' bnbvboomer nostnl- show, ICan Take You Higher. open- to have total power; the psychedelic drugs which arc illcg<ll and those gift, hut it alS(} speaks of nothing Ing In Cleveland's Rock and Roll style, enshrined in The Beatles' 1%7 who don't. The cxtrnordinarv suc- less than the human wish 10 try 1-laUof Fame this /.In" S~ Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club cess of Irvine Welsh. who, coura- things dirTcrrntly, to time travel If psychedella is hack, what is it Band, marks pop at a moment or geously, IH1~not shied away from its from the past and thr future into tlw and what does it want'! The word is great nmbition and outreach. implications, indicates a stron~ present.