Tree Colored See

This could scarcely be any more Californian. The Mystic Chords Of Memory were Santa Cruz band and couple Christopher Gunst and Jen Cohen, and made a couple of albums of the gentlest and most blissed out of Laurel Canyon country-psychedelia somewhere in the orbit of Devendra Banhart’s “freak folk” axis. Nobody is alt-hip hop producer Elvin Estela, who as he was producing this 2006 album was also just starting as resident DJ at Low End Theory – LA’s ground zero for the “beat scene”. The result is the purest of lysergic sunshine bliss. The obvious hip hop influences are minimal, but what it does is find the highest common factor between the exquisite textural detail of Madlib-style sampling of old psych records, and those old records’ own production techniques. Every shaker, every strum, every mellotron completely radiates love of the sensory experience – and the songs are delicious too. The very gentleness of the record meant it passed critics by at the time – a shame, but understandable as it is as light as a wisp of campfire smoke. But repeat listens will show you that there is glorious purpose to this record. A lost classic.