UNFOLDING How To Blow Your Mind 1967 SITAR FUZZ EXPLOITO PSYCH GENIUS LP LISTEN

$

128

THE UNFOLDING "HOW TO BLOW YOUR MIND AND HAVE A FREAK OUT PARTY" LP

ORIGINAL 1967 LP ON THE US AUDIO FIDELITY LABEL, STEREO AFSD 6184

COVER IN EXCELLENT SHAPE

VINYL IS SUPER CLEAN AND SHINY, PLAYS EXCELLENT TO NEAR MINT 

ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF THIS RARE RECORD I'VE SEEN!

A friend of mine once told me he knew a great way to blow my mind.  I told him point-blank I said, “Hey, there are lots of way to blow your mind.  But what I really want to do is blow my mind and have a freak-out party.  Betcha got nothing for that, do you?”  At which point, he pulled out this little record by the Unfolding.  Sure enough, there it was.  How to Blow Your Mind And Have a Freak Out Party.  A veritable Cliffs Notes on the subject.  So, does it work?

Leadoff track “I’ve Got a Zebra, She Can Fly” starts out safe enough, with a dude jamming kinda free-formly on electric guitar while someone who sounds a bit like Marty Balin sings about their flying zebra in the middle of an echo-chamber six miles wide.  Somewhere around the three-minute mark, someone starts playing with the pitch shift and the panning effects simultaneously, and this continues for the next two minutes while the singer gets further and further away from the mike.  Then someone leads heavily on the phlanging effect before the band is given the stop order mid-verse, so everything just kinda ends mid-song.  Pretty spacey stuff, I guess, and if you’re mildly buzzed, or you’re only familiar with the works of the Mamas and the Papas, it might just blow your mind.  But me, I need stronger stuff than this.

Next up – “Play Your Game.”  It’s a very strong Byrds rip, with an excellent melody and a nice cosmic stoned drone vibe going on.  The vocals are way off on the right channel, the drummer is inspired, and someone’s playing with the pitch shift again mid-song.  An excellent tune, absolutely top-notch psych pop stuff.  But my mind’s as yet unblown.  “Girl From Nowhere” is more of the same – another great vaguely Eastern raga melody, lots of full stereo separation, and wicked fuzzed-up echoed-out guitar solos.  They’re really starting to sound like the first West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band here, and that’s a big compliment.  But the doorbell’s not ringing yet, and without guests, I’m still unable to have a genuine freak-out party.  Maybe I should make a mass twitter or something.

“Flora’s Holiday” is up next, and now we’re talking!  Some girl starts off singing what sounds like an outtake from Mary Poppins to a backdrop of rockets exploding and someone very obviously taking hit after hit on a bong, then panicking and starting to breathe very hard into the mike.  Meanwhile, the girl starts to stammer and stutter, possibly from the residual smoke, or possibly because now, finally, people are starting to filter in through the fire escape, looking for that power bong.  The landlord’s getting nervous, the cats are hiding under the sofa.  We have the start of a freak-out party.

“Love Supreme Deal” continues the descent into freakishness.  Set to a simple marching beat that has trouble keeping a steady tempo, it starts accompanied by a fife that disappears when the Hells Angels arrive and throw the fife player off the balcony.  A disembodied, demented calliope rears its head occasionally, interrupted by lyrics about “pictures of eternity, pictures of pictures of eternity” while a passing ET in a UFO buzzes the recording studio, occasionally leaning outside the window to fire laser blasts at the control board.  Somewhere a radio commercial for the Albert Ludwig School of Medicine plays, an old-time fire engine races down the street, and the Lakeside Amusement Park calliope starts up again as the Memory of Alessa dances a spectral jig with Robbie the Rabbit and a thousand furry animals with picts mutter “Goodbye, goooo-ooodbye!” inside the paisley haze.  The mind has been officially blown.  The freakout party begins.

Side 2 is called the Meditation Side, so surely the freakout party must be an inner one.  “Prana” is one long sitar headswirler and triple-tracked competing mantras spouting out such weed-fueled gems as “Within that flower, there are seven flowers yet unawakened” and “We emerge into the one, we become one”   in a suitably stoned voice.   I half expected someone to shout out “You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!” but it didn’t happen.  More chanting, more sitar, a round of “hare Krishna” and the album drifts to a shuddering close with a hash brownie fairy tale called “Parable,” a Grimm Reefer tale from another dimension of consciousness.  There are now twenty people in my apartment, and most of them are lying on furniture looking at the ceiling and muttering stuff about nothingness and the size of the universe.  Hot damn, this record really works!  Minds have been blown, and I’ve just had a bona fide freakout party.  Thank you, Unfolding! 

I have to admit, I was skeptical at first.  “How could one simple album blow your mind and give you a freakout party at the same time?  Surely there must be a catch.”  But I’m here to tell you it works.  And it can be yours for one low bid, plus shipping and handling.  Operators are standing by now.  Well, actually, they’re sort of leaning up against the wall, stroking the colors vibrating in the wallpaper.  But they’ll answer your phone call in time.  Act now!  Before the pigs raid the warehouse.

HEAR IT!

PLEASE NOTE I NO LONGER SHIP TO ITALY DUE TO A CORRUPT POSTAL SYSTEM (THERE, NOT HERE).  BUYERS FROM ITALY AGREE TO PAY FOR GLOBAL PRIORITY MAIL INSURED ONLY!

The less exciting stuff

Media mail shipping with delivery confirmation starts at $4.00 in the US, with each additional record only $1 additional shipping.  I accept payments through Paypal. 

I try to grade as best as I can, and I list as many blemishes/imperfections I can find (writing, ringwear, scuff marks, etc.) – Also, please note that I DO listen to these albums – I may not listen to every track, but my grades are based on LISTENING, not just looking at it, since chances are you’ll be listening to the record you buy, not just looking at it.  Most of the albums I sell are the ones I’ve enjoyed for years – and I treat my records with kid gloves.  But sounds speak louder than words, so check out the sound clips below – they’re from the actual record you’re bidding on. 

SHIPPING AND PACKAGING

Listen, I buy a bunch of records too (when I’m not getting outbid at the last second, which is more often than not) – and I know what it’s like to get a rare, one-of-a-kind album packaged dangerously in a flimsy bubblewrap package.  I hate that too.  So rest assured, I ALWAYS package albums with stiff cardboard reinforcements, same for 45s.  And yes, the records are removed from the sleeves (for albums).  I ship out once a week, every Friday, because I have a regular day job.  But I’d be willing to give that up if you’d all be so kind as to bid my items up to stupidly high amounts. 

 For more security and international tracking, you may request GLOBAL PRIORITY MAIL - but bear in mind the cost of this service is upwards of $30.  For expensive items, however, it may be well worth it.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a cost-effective way of tracking parcels to foreign countries yet, and shipping times vary depending on your country’s postal system.   Italy in particular seems to be really bad at delivering packages quickly, or delivering packages at all, now that you mention it.  I will always email you when your package ships, but once it’s on its way, please don’t ask me when it will arrive because I don’t know.  If the world’s postal systems can ever agree on a universal tracking system that’s affordable, I’ll be the first to use it.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN…

I will always leave positive feedback for successful transactions, and would appreciate the same in return.  All I ask of you is the following – please pay for your items within 14 days of the close of auction.  Compared to other sellers, that’s a generous amount of time, so if you don’t pay within 2 weeks, then I have to assume something’s wrong.  You’ll get an Ebay payment reminder at that point, and possibly a decapitated horse head in your bed.  If, after 30 days, you still haven’t forked up the cash, I’ll relist the item and yell at you if I ever see you in town.