It would have seemed, uh, “ribald” in 1970. It seems dated and stereotypical now (especially the “my visit to Fire Island” material). Its definition of the word “funk” has been obsolete for half a century. But while Gonzales was no Slim Gaillard or Lord Buckley, he did possess a singular form of jazz-hipster cool that one might conditionally recommend to archeologists of the era.

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The holidays mostly feel to me these days like a fractal of previous holidays, which is as good an explanation as I can muster for why I find myself once again sitting around on December 24th listening to Peter Hammill records.

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A British major label went to the trouble of releasing this ornate Celtic-prog opus—it is dull, dull, dull—in mid-1977, long after two Ramones albums, “Anarchy In The UK,” and debuts from The Clash, Television, The Damned, etc., had appeared. Listening to it makes me feel like an ichthyologist who’s discovered a thought-to-be-extinct sea creature hiding at the bottom of a lake.

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The great triumph of ‘90s psychedelia was that it recognized the Apollonian uptightness of a lot of ‘60s/‘80s psychedelia—writerly songs, linear jamming, etc.—and replaced it with varying modes of Dionysian incoherence and delirium. This welcome reissue of early Bardo Pond material c.1993 is a perfect example. Brain-melting slush has seldom felt so ecstatic.

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An all-time great psychedelic album cover squandered on tepid instrumentals that wouldn’t have passed muster as hippie-crash-pad background music on Dragnet or Mod Squad. But I’ll award it a couple of bonus points for some nice harpsichord bits and for naming a track: “The Dowser And The Thaumaturgist.”

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The songwriting is just-okay, but the sonics are so ambitious and compelling that I keep going back to this album with genuine enjoyment. (I feel the same way about their other LPs, too.) They must have been devastating live. Cover art by Milton Glaser!

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A record I only ever play at 2AM.

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