This latest offering on Ninja Tune certainly has one of the more interesting provenances amongst the gathering of albums that I’ve reviewed recently. Way back in the late sixties, multi-instrumentalist sons of a symphonic conductor and an opera singer Doug, Daryl and Dennis Dragon were gigging around the LA area, picking up various session spots for other artists and working on their own tracks late at night during the downtime from their “regular’ jobs. While they title the sessions (distinctly inspired by psychedelic contemporaries such as Hendrix and The Doors Blue Forces Intelligence (shortened here to the acronym BFI), attempting to find the missing link between spacey psyche-rock, jazz and soul, the various suits at the West Coast major labels they end up shopping their demo opt to pass on it, claiming that they don’t hear any hits. In the interim, the Dragon brothers become disillusioned and decide instead to concentrate on their session work, all of them ending up working for the Beach Boys’ backing band, while Daryl goes on to enjoy separate success as the Captain of Captain & Tenille fame. Fast forward 37 years, and Ninja Tune’ Strictly Kev discovers the Dragons’ “Food For My Soul’ on a private pressing of the soundtrack to a long-forgotten surf movie amongst a consignment of vintage vinyl. Managing to track down Dennis via email, he soon discovers that an entire unreleased album exists, and while Ninja Tune apparently first suspect a scam, they eventually decide to release BFI almost forty years after its recording.
From almost the very outset, it’s fairly obvious why (all food-related puns aside) the 11 psychedelic soul/rock-oriented tracks collected here would represent ideal candidates for the latest Solid Steel mix session, or perhaps DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist’s next retro-rock gazing jaunt. If instrumental opening track “Cosmosis’ hints at the psychedelic krautrock influence of Can and Cluster / Harmonia with its breezy fusion of stiffly-precise drumming, and elastic organ / analogue synth keys, though its undeniable skiffle influences manage to collide with the optimistic contemporary soft-rock vibes of the West Coast and take things to a considerably different place entirely. The aforementioned “Food For My Soul’ meanwhile ventures far closer to psychedelic soul, Doug Dragon’s smooth, subtly reverbed vocals intersecting with jangling organs to create a blend that at times calls to mind The Door’s jam-extended rock theatre, though notably it manages to avoid that aforementioned act’s sense of menace, as well as its more ugly excesses.
“Amplified Emotion’ sees detached female vocals taking centre stage amidst the recorded sounds of waves slowly rolling in, as icy synths and organs pick their way amidst minimalist drums and bass, in a moment that suggests hints of the Velvet Underground’ spidery arrangements (albeit without the heroin and Nico’ sense of impending doom), before “Sandman’ knocks things straight back towards skiffle-infused pop in the vein of The Kinks, Doug’ treated vocals rippling over a fluid backdrop of glittering percussion, xylophones and Asian pastiche synths- while it might sound like a garish combination on paper, it practice it works far more successfully. While BFI certainly represents something of a previously undiscovered treasure for fans of vintage West Coast psychedelic rock and soul, it isn’ quite worthy of “lost classic’ status. While The Dragons manage to hint at the sorts of spaced-out landscapes conjured by then-contemporaries such as The Doors, it’s perhaps their session musician backgrounds that bleed through most here, lending proceedings a precise and slightly “hemmed in’ vibe, rather than truly tripping out.
Chris Downton
