Legendary obscuro 60's psych record... known in collector circles as one of the most feedback-drenched recordings of all time. This band was from Detroit, home of the Stooges, MC5, and SRC. It's also been compared to the Velvet Underground... here is what Allmusic has to say:
"One reviewer likened their debut LP, pretty accurately, to sounding as if it had been recorded in a freight elevator. For a psychedelic act, Index's sound was uncommonly morose and minimalistic. They were prone to eerie, repetitious ragas, the reverb giving them a surfing-on-the-moon feel. Their originals were based around modal melodies and mournful, almost Nico-like vocals (although they were entirely male), and they wreaked slow-torture havoc with their drawn-out ragazations of "Eight Miles High," "John Riley," and "You Keep Me Hangin' On." Weirdest of all were their instrumentals, where melody took a distant second to cascading walls of reverb, wah-wah, and shrieking feedback that verged on the avant-garde."
Fuck yeah!
Download The Index s/t LP (1967)
- link from Tigers of Love
-front.JPG)
1 comments:
Good lord! This is AMAZING. Who are these guys? I've never heard of them, and here I am digging this download about as much as I have been the 13th Floor Elevators box set I paid 150 clams for...
It's also kinda innaresting (as Neil Young would say) that they do two Byrds covers. (I know "John Riley" isn't a Byrds original, but I think it's safe to say they're where these guys got it from.) Between this, Ron Asheton's having directly copped a Byrds riff for "1969," and The Byrds having been one of the few among the Velvets' contemporaries that Lou Reed would admit to liking at the time, I think we must conclude that the Byrds' influence on feedback-drenched nihilo-rock is greater than generally recognized.
Post a Comment