Not bad at all. Not exactly brilliant either, but this recorded free-form "freak-out" from 1967 (originally released on New York City's Audio Fidelity label) is not only not terrible, but surprisingly pretty OK for stretches, especially considering the typical quality of these types of had-to-be-there period curios that purport to blow your mind with an aural approximation of an acid trip. This one actually manages to be something approaching far out, man, even at its most half-baked. Whether How to Blow Your Mind and Have a Freakout Party was, in fact, created as a "head" LP by practicing heads (a certain David Dalton is listed as the Unfolding's presiding mastermind - no word in the liner notes if this is the same Dalton who was a pioneering rock scribe and founding editor of Rolling Stone), or as an exploitation of same by a faceless assemblage of session musicians is really anyone's guess…

Awesome reissue! The world famous Impulse jazz catalogue is so cavernous you truly need a music-minded flashlight to uncover its deepest and darkest secrets. Thankfully Light In The Attic has recently acquired such luminescent technology and the first discovery is Hungarian guitarist GABOR SZABO’s 1967 Indo-fusion landmark, Jazz Raga. combines Szabo's distinctive 6-string touch & open-minded ideas. It brings together jazz, pop-rock & his native European influence, along with hypnotic sitar, stoned bass vibrations, occasional psychedelic vocals & the laidback. Totally essential!

Their score for Roman Polanski's Macbeth film required the group to work in a somewhat more constricted format. So instead of lengthy hypnotic drones, this album's split into 16 separate pieces, some of them quite short. It's consequently not as reflective of their highest ambitions as the Third Ear Band album, and loses a bit when placed out of context from the Shakespeare classic. It still works reasonably effectively on its own, conjuring appopriately ominous Elizabethean moods, with the surprise addition of (uncredited) female vocals on one track.

Their self-titled, second album is probably their definitive statement, consisting of four lengthy tracks devoted to the primary elements ("Air," "Earth, " "Fire, " "Water"). The feeling is one of improvised (though well-conceived) pieces that build up from initial drones to multi-layered ragas built around the same initial patterns. Their strong debts to both Indian music and contemporary experimental/minimalist compositions are evident. It's not accessible enough for the average rock (or even average progressive rock) listener. But it's certainly more geared toward the adventurous rock listener than the most challenging and/or difficult contemporary avant-garde music.

Hailing from the heart of London's 'alternative underground' society in Notting Hill, Quintessence were inspired by Eastern philosophy and spiritual teachings creating a unique fusion of Psychedelia, Jazz and Ethnic Rock. 'Indweller' saw them continue their musical explorations in this vein, creating a classic of the Progressive / Acid Rock genre. The Esoteric re-mastered edition was produced from the original analogue master tapes and features a booklet with liner notes and new essay.

Lead by Australian-born violinist and flutist Rothfield (aka Raja Ram), keyboardist Phil Jones (Shiva Shankar) and Shambu Babaji on bass, this North-London group had very strong spiritual Indian classical music influences. Their first two albums, In Blissfull Company and their eponymous second album (they had much success riding on the popular sudden passion provoked by the Beatles) are filled with Indian Sacred Chants and Psalms, but also much more accessible jazz-filled rock tracks full of delightful moments. The 2004 CD reissue on Repertoire adds a live version of "Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Gauranga" (originally released on the first pressing of the 1970 Island compilation Bumpers) as a bonus track.

Dive Deep, Quintessence's third album, was effectively more of what had come before, with long instrumental passages, sometimes with definable themes and sometimes sounding as if the band had instructions to jam and see what happened. Not afraid to stretch their songs to around the ten-minute mark, there were only six tracks - of which "Epitaph for Tomorrow" had a guitar solo running through it and which could be described as the forerunner of Tubular Bells – and the final track, "Sri Ram Chant," made liberal use of the sitar, Raja Ram's flute, Indian rhythms throughout, and a mantra mentioning Krishna at every opportunity. Much simpler was the title track, "Dive Deep," which opened the album and owed more to '60s folk than prog or religious rock…

By 1972, the magical aura that once surrounded Quintessence had long since dissipated, just as the band itself had shed much of the evocative panache that characterized their greatest moments. One more album on the unfamiliar pastures of RCA was not going to correct their decline, but Self emerged a delight regardless, chiefly courtesy of the live second side that caught the band in full flight at Exeter University. Despite being just two songs long, the performance rolls back the years so effectively that the faintly workaday weight of side one is barely even relevant to the album's glory. There, of course, the band's customary blending of Indian mantra and jazzy heartbeats is as eclectic as ever, and the only downside is that the group has not really moved on from its original vision. This Esoteric Recordings reissue has been remastered from the original master tapes…

The Folkswingers, a studio-only group comprised of a changeable cast of top Los Angeles session musicians, had issued a couple of instrumental LPs showcasing the 12-string guitar before leaping on the raga-rock bandwagon with Raga Rock in 1966. Give the World Pacific label a little credit, though: at least they jumped on that bandwagon real fast, almost right after the term "raga-rock" was first used. Plus, the record did employ the cream of the cream from the L.A. rock session world, with Hal Blaine on drums; Larry Knechtel on keyboards; Tommy Tedesco, Howard Roberts, and Herb Ellis on guitar; and Lyle Ritz and Bill Pittman on bass. And it did at least have an actual sitar, courtesy of Harihar Rao, leader of Los Angeles' Ravi Shankar Music Circle and director of the Indian Studies Group at UCLA's Institute of Ethnomusicology…