#0096: Surrealist Pillow - Jefferson Airplane

It has been a while.  Thank you for your patience.  I wrote a draft of my review for this album almost two years ago now so I'm taking another spin of this in an effort to let my thoughts coalesce across the divide.

The first thing that hits me about the opening track is it's got one of those deceptive rhythms where the drums and guitar seem to be in opposition.  One of them is playing against the beat and until the vocal and/or bass enters it's anybody's guess as to where the 1 is.

Sometimes that's a really cool effect.  Other times it's just annoying.  I'm slightly annoyed to be honest, which is itself annoying cuz She Has Funny Cars has got what I would call a psychedelic folk feel that does draw you in without trying to be too weird.  There are lots of vocal overlays, none of which quite manage to stay at the front for long enough to form a narrative but what this does promise is that repeated listening will yield more detail.  It's certainly bouncy enough and the guitar work is tasty and controlled.  Nice little false ending as well.

Somebody To Love is a famous song - I couldn't tell you where I know it from, probably a soundtrack.  The female vocal is rich and intense but not forced, the guitar work is again deft and interesting and whole thing is carried off in under 3 minutes so no complaints.

Taking it down a notch or two to a soft hippy sunshine song, My Best Friend hangs on to the turn while they layer the harmonies and some might say that's laying it on a bit thick but it gives way to a slightly funky play-out that then returns to the full upper body swaying coach trip song.  Back and forth the two grooves hand back control making this not the dull with saccharin excursion it threatened.

And cue the moody ballad.  Today is your basic atmospheric piece, flooded with reverb with the male vocal sitting in the almost Jon Anderson high tenor range.  It drifts past with increasing gravitas in the form of timpani and extra harmony but drifting is the operative word and if that's its intent, job done.    

Coming Back To Me is a picky one for you fledgling axe minstrels.  With a low flute line, giving it an ethereal edge, the vocals describe a dreamlike state in which lost love is seen to return.  As whiny pleading for another shag goes it's as artful as that sort of desperate clinging gets.  Sardonic dismissal aside it's quite beautiful.

It took a wile to get back to the stomping up beat stuff.  Maybe that's just their style; to be more of a folky ambient bunch.  Time will tell but the basic riff in Three Fifths Of A Mile In 10 Seconds is rescued from ennui by the now characteristic harmonies and some interesting chord changes in the turnaround.

The guitarist isn't blowing anybody's mind but he's tuneful at least and doesn't labour the point.  What's wrong with it?   Well, the titles are really interesting but I can't catch enough of the vocal to tell if that's just a gimmick.   3 5ths of a mile is prolly the distance to the shops when I was a kid.  That was 10 mins walk uphill so to do it in seconds, this song is ether about sex or drugs.   Yeah, you don't really need a weird title to get that across.

D.C.B.A.25 - This is more towards the flowers in your hair mood tho and so is the next one - How Do You Feel.  So we have a consensus now at least on what this album is really saying.  Jefferson Airplane are a folk crossover band and their strengths are formidable.

Now, I don't care if you hate the TV show, Friends.  You don't care that I hate some of your favourite stuff so let's just make our peace with that.  The next track I recognised instantly but it took a minute for me to place it as the music used during the end credits of the very last episode of Friends.  I have seen it a number of times and I do not mind admitting that I cry every single time.  I don't think it's just that the show is ending.  I think the choice of music is a significant contributor.  It's called Embryonic Journey and it's just fantastic.  It's an instrumental, solo acoustic guitar piece and it has the feel of something plucked from thin air, expressing the moment with exquisite accuracy. 

It's somewhat reminiscent of Bron Yr Aur from Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti some years later so that should probably be vice versa.  Maybe there's an influence there.  

We're drawing towards the close of the original track listing and White Rabbit begins as the wild card in the deck.  It's a tango / flamenco thing that breaks into a rockier adaptation for its ciimax.  Obvious references to Alice aside it's not unbearable and then we have the finale.

Plastic Fantastic.  Buggeration.  Why does everyone have to allude to Dylan?   Lots of greater musicians than I really rate him so I don't think they really mean to draw attention to his many weaknesses when they cover his stuff or, as in this case, when they write a song in his style.  This is a great song, tho.  The right length and no bullshit.  See Bob?  No you don't see, do you?  Your view is obscured by your massive, pulsating prostate.  

Plenty of variety in this and mostly not shit so I'm giving it an optimistic 4 stars[1]

[1] I've gone back and forth on whether to keep the rating secret until the end as I have here but I find it useful when searching thru previous posts to use the rating as a search term.  The compromise I've settled on is to leave it a week or two until enough people have had a chance to read each one before I include my rating in the title.  So.  That's a thing you know, now.