This four-sided monolith is one of the most beautiful, seductive sets of collective improvisation out there. Taj Mahal Travellers was formed by Takehisa Kosugi (Group Ongaku / Fluxus) in 1969; over the half-decade or so, they toured the world, and recorded several fantastic albums that documented their unique take on free sound. They tended to play outdoors, and would subject their sounds to electronic processing, which made for a curious sense of dislocation; the way they allow their music slowly to accrete around several shifting layers of drones makes their music, perhaps, the most genuinely psychedelic of the collective improvisation / free music ensembles formed in the late sixties and seventies. August 1974 takes its sweet time in saying a few profound things in a string of long, slow statements.

– Jon Dale