Lost In Tyme Blog

Madrigal - 1971 - Madrigal
(private press US psych)

Tracks :
1 Excursion 2:20
2 Stoned Freakout 12:56
3 The Ballad 2:56
4 Places 3:41
5 Tambula 8:42
6 Fallen Tree 4:15
7 Where You Going 3:20
8 B.B's Finale 2:48

Personnel:
WILLIAM BONKOSKI bs
WILLIAM HORN gtr, theremin, oscillator
(JOHN ACKERMAN)

ALBUM:
1(A) MADRIGAL (No label ARA/B 136) c1971 R4

Early seventies private press from New Jersey.

Experimental rock music with electronic drums (an early drum machine - the Maestro).
A very primitive affair; sounds like it was recorded live in a basement.
The record is dominated by an "anything goes" attitude, epitomised by the 14'00" Stoned Freakout featuring druggy chatter and distorted screams. An acquired taste, this one. Fans of the long tracks on the first two Velvet Underground albums, should investigate further. I'm told that Bill Horn released several later albums of either electronic music or keyboard-based rock, but I don't have details.
(Clark Faville)~Fuzz Acid & Flowers

If anything here in the Archives fits the term "underground," it's this. Supposedly only about 50 copies were made and when one of the band members was found he was rude and refused to talk about his album or disclose the whereabouts of his bandmate. The record itself is a basement-sounding recording by two guys with no help from anyone else, and only a tiny bit of overdubbing. One guy plays guitar, one plays theremin, both sing, one of them runs a drum machine. The vocals are heavily reverbed. About half of the songs are random improvisations (including a 12-minute mess called "Stoned Freakout") with unhinged screaming, feedback-laden guitar and other various noises. The other half are pop songs, basically done with just voice, guitar and drum machine. Some of these songs are quite good, and as awful as fake drums can be, something about this primitive machine only adds to the lonely DIY feeling here, making these guys sort of a cross between Suicide, Moolah and Index. The vocals are very good. "Ballad," which is so quiet that you can barely hear the singing, is especially eerie. The closing instrumental is really lame, like the instrumentals on the North County Rock Association album. Obviously, much of this album is boring and/or annoying, but some of it is pretty memorable too. More importantly, it's one of those albums that sounds absolutely like nothing else, which always means that someone out there will fall in love with it. Considering the rarity and $1000 price tag, hopefully it will be reissued so that one person won't go broke trying to find it.
[AM]~Acid Archives