“The things I experienced were quite unreal. I’ve been totally out there. I can honestly say I’ve experienced everything Aldous Huxley wrote about in The Doors Of Perception. Drugs–specifically marijuana–played their part.” Shields says a book called Hypnogogia “literally saved me and made me feel sane.” Hypnogogia is the term for that state just before sleep where you have brief surreal flashes of scenes, almost like cartoons. Reading the book (the author’s name escapes Kevin), Shields found an explanation for his insomniac habits and aesthetic preoccupations. The author makes parallels between hypnogogia and all the other extremes of the human mind, mystical and drugged. Basically, there’s a door to another type of consciousness and it’s open all the time.

“When You Sleep” is not my favorite Loveless track, but I’m glad to post it for two reasons (apart from its obvious relevance to the “sleep” series of posts I’m doing): 1. A while back I did some jiggery-pokery on the track (utlizing out of phase stereo) that brought up in the mix ever so slightly a wibbly-wobbly guitar part that had been buried; and 2. there’s a neat cover of the song by The Antlers to point out as well (see the Mockingbirds page).

My Bloody Valentine: When You Sleep

We lost an hour this weekend, but it felt like ten hours. The big black bear was lumbering, lolling out on the mountaintop this weekend, and found time for a catnap, but none for this blog. So, in the interest of quick content, I throw all journalistic integrity (good thing I’m not a journalist) out the window right now as I recycle myself. This little blurb comes from Facebook, so it may be a repeat for some of you. It’s the inevitable top ten. More reliable even than the backlash that follows them is the perpetuity of the simple “top ten” list. Grumble if you must, but I thought they worked rather well in “High Fidelity,” and after all, many of us do order our lives this way, at least subconsciously. So, here are the top ten albums that influenced me as a fan and musician, and along with each choice is an mp3. Please enjoy, and, oh yes, please do share your top ten.

TEN
Pink Floyd The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Simply nuts. The only (semi-)coherent body of work we ever got out of Syd Barrett, and it’s a kaleidoscope of strange characters and bicycle parts. It’s the sheer invention that gets me.
Pink Floyd: Bike (mono version)

NINE
Deerhoof The Runners Four
There have been so many solid albums of the recent ‘Aughts, but this is the only one that I can say without hesitation is a GIANT, and I suspect will remain so for years to come. Again, it’s sheer invention.
Deerhoof: Running Thoughts

EIGHT
Bob Dylan Oh Mercy
I could have easily put Desire, Street Legal, Blonde On Blonde, or 5-6 others on this list, but I chose this reawakening from the ’80s, mainly for its post-Gospel soul searching and reverberation.
Bob Dylan: Ring Them Bells

SEVEN
American Music Club Mercury
Almost single-handedly put me on the wrong track mentally for 15 years, and convinced me that it was all too beautiful for words. Now that’s powerful stuff. Drugs schmugs.
American Music Club: I’ve Been A Mess

SIX
Neil Young Tonight’s the Night
One of the most harrowing and foggiest tributes to departed friends ever put to tape. This is what it sounds like when a caring man tries to stop caring.
Neil Young: Mellow My Mind

FIVE
The Innocence Mission Birds Of My Neighborhood
The most beautiful album I own, and the purest, most humble music it is possible for humans to make. The kind of music that gives me chills even after the 100th listen.
The Innocence Mission: The Lakes Of Canada

FOUR
Tindersticks Tindersticks (second album)
The persona that Stuart Staples brings to this exquisite music — ragged, classy, world-weary, wise in hindsight — soak through the listener’s experiences like scotch through ice.
Tindersticks: Tiny Tears

THREE
My Bloody Valentine Loveless
The aural equivalent to a painting with thick oils that look slightly different at different angles and in different light. The bent sound thrills me every time. “11″ isn’t loud enough for this album.
My Bloody Valentine: Soon

TWO
The Beach Boys SMiLE
This is hands-down the finest and most evocative body of music to come out of the collective pyschedelic dream of 1966. Tells the story of America in visual puns, and ventures into an elemental side-trip like a koan.
The Beach Boys: Cabin Essence

ONE
The La’s The La’s
The official version is good, but when you take the best bits and bobs from the various junked sessions, you’ve really got something. Urgent, desperate, wild-eyed, celebratory, despairing, and bad-ass. All extremes in life are here, like an apocalypse.
The La’s: Son Of A Gun (album version)

Just me and the water

Without lyrics to entice exegesis, music can become anything you want it to be, and it reaches places you can’t touch. Tonight I will share with you four instrumentals from my library, each reaching separate itches that other songs won’t scratch. My places are different than yours, of course. Leave a comment and let us know what yours are.

1. I grew up in the rural part of rural Pennsylvania, where at night I’d hear trains from across the cornfield and I’d wake uneasily, remembering the trouble I had gotten into that day and how mad my Dad got.
Tindersticks: Vertrauen II

2. I’d try to fall back to sleep, and suddenly I’m floating on a flooded world, my twin-size bed the last life raft for me and my friend from school. I hold her hand gently, and we become best friends, ready to be lovers when we get old enough.
Brian Eno: Deep Blue Day

3. Older now, the same waters are imagined, and they’re inside out now. I’m the flood, and the world is a stone in my stomach. Joy is terrible and close.
My Bloody Valentine: Glider

4. I’m still the flood, but now I’m friends with the water. I look over the tops of the trees of the childhood forest, over the farmers’ fields, over the toy trains, and into the window of a rowhouse with warm light.
The Clientele: The Dance Of The Hours

When you wake you're still in a dream

Slow fade back in time to a misty dorm room, a musty mattress, and a rickety heater on full blast. 1991. I created a second home, my first real follow-up to the womb. Those were the woozy days of shoegaze, both a new awakening and a half-asleep haze. Kevin Shields fashioned this impenetrable canvas, thicker than Rothko, and he gave it a curious enveloping quality. The listener feels loved. Here then is my third favorite song, and I am hereby founding Subanimal Sounds on these three songs from three tragic but beautiful visionaries: Lee Mavers, Brian Wilson (with an affectionate nod to Van Dyke), and Kevin Shields. Enjoy.

My Bloody Valentine: To Here Knows When (Tremolo EP Version)