Albert Hoffman At The House O' Fun Dept.

Design by False Memory Foam© Art Department O' Art Dept.

"I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like" sang Syd Barrett [lead singer with The Pink Floyds beat group - Ed.] just before he fell off. Albert Hoffman [above - Ed.] is the patron saint of psyclists everywhere, and his game-changing bike ride is celebrated with this scientifically enhanced compilation.

I'm not usually a fan of Various Artists. I find their albums too diverse. But Acid Dreams is an exception. Older UK readers may remember Fun House Records, a grimy bootleg label and collectors' store from England's own Pismo Beach, Margate. They specialized in trampling roughshod over copyright law and reissuing rare albums at the lowest possible quality and selling them at the highest possible price to idiots like me. But at that time, pre-CD, it could be the only way you'd get to hear them. Their masterpiece was in-house comp Acid Dreams, issued in a dull op-art plastic sleeve [not above - Ed.] that was almost worth buying for the smell alone. It was supposed to come in psychedelic swirly vinyl, but mine was just muddy gray. And they said it was a German release, which was a fib, too. D'oh! You guys!

The music was chosen with a razorblade sensibility for the paranoid end of the lysergic market. It has seen numerous bootlegged versions (ironique, non?) over the years. I've pasted in a handful of crucial tracks (including the blindingly great 99th Floor, which improves everything it appears on) that those Fun House rascals didn't have room for. Or forgot. Or something.

Positioned nicely between the "smoother" sounds of Lenny Kaye's Nuggets and the gritty barrel-scrapings of similar efforts, it's the only psych comp that made the leap to my hand-held device of choice, and you might just dig it. Because it's keen!

 

This barn find post has been sensitively resto-modded to increase its investment value.