5. 13th Floor ElevatorsBull Of The Woods
I chose this because it’s one of the lesser-heralded albums. Roky Erickson’s presence on it is a bit diminished because of his mental state, or psychedelic state, so there are other members of the band coming to the fore. Some of the songs are amazing. For a record that must have been done really cheaply, it has this amazing – I’m not sure how to describe it without evoking LSD-type terminology – vibrant, buzzy something, a specialness. The bass sounds are amazing and it has songs like ‘Never Another’, which is like a really abstract form for a rock and roll blues song that descends into these strange brass arrangements. And then it ends perfectly with ‘May The Circle Remain Unbroken’.
People would normally turn to Easter Everywhere because, as soon as you put it on it’s there, a really high-level engagement. But this kind of creeps up on you. Some songs are abstract and so mysterious and mystical that it’s like they have a secret musical language. It’s also strange how sometimes the instruments sound like they could be playing different songs or in different sonic spaces, with echoes out of time or too heavy and illogical.
