Kaleidoscope - Faintly Blowing

Magic Box | MBLP1033 | 0799559025847

A classic of UK psych, and the band’s second and last album (Fontana, 1969). This is a smashing good record from start to end, with imaginative compositions that are brilliant, melodic, and sensitive - and with all the finest trappings of the psychedelia of the period: phased instruments, sound-effects, etc. For their second album, Kaleidoscope delivered something very much like their debut: pleasant, trippy, spacey raga-rock — with the main difference being that they pushed the wattage a little harder on their instruments. They had also been performing pretty extensively by the time of this, their second LP; much of the music here was material that they had worked out on-stage in very solid versions. The result is a record just as pretty as their debut, but a little punchier and more exciting than their first album. The title track is also one of the more beautiful psychedelic effects pieces of its period, while 'A Story from Tom Bitz' is crunchy folk-rock, '(Love Song) For Annie’ represents a more lyrical brand of druggy folk-rock, and 'If You So Wish' shifts over to Moody Blues-style ballad territory circa late 1968 and early 1969. • UK psych-rock classic. • Originally issued in 1969. • Replica gatefold sleeve