HAPSHASH AND THE COLOURED COAT/FEATURING THE HUMAN HOST AND THE HEAVY METAL KIDS MLL 40001 (-67) UK MONO

 There's a lot written about this LP in public media, some contradictory. I'm trying to boil it down here. "Hapshash and the Coloured Coat" was a name for the artist duo Mike English and Nigel Waymouth, at the time recieving high praise for creative album covers and psychedelic posters with much of their inspiration coming from hallucinogenic drugs. Non of them were musicians, but as prominent part of the London in-crowd they had a way of setting things in motion - not unlike what Andy Warhol did at the same time in New York. As the album's full title indicate it was made by a sort of triumvirate. Waymouth and English as HATCC instigated the whole thing and did cover design. Guy Stevens (Human Host) - who at this time worked as a DJ and ran Island's Sue label division - handeled production and studio work and " The Heavy Metal Kids", responsible for most of the musical input, was in fact the band "Art", later renamed "Spooky Tooth". So in a way this is a sibling album to Art's "Supernatural Fairy Tales" (Island ILP 967), which also was produced by Stevens with cover design by HATCC and issued about the same time. Anyway the outcome here is very different from SFT. While that is a well produced rock/psych album having rather ordinary song structures, this consists of lengthy jam sessions built around preset themes and ideas with vocals mostly as chants, grunts or moans. A cardinal exemple of hard core acid rock recorded under the influence. It's hard to say where they got the impulse for making such an LP, but I would guess the "Help I'm A Rock" and "Magnet" tracks from Zappa's "Freak Out" album. There are lots of similarities, especially on the sixteen minute "Empires Of The Sun". Even if public interest and sales were low initially it is now considered a psych classic and pointed out as an inspiration to early krautrock and prog. This mono sounds great - big and strong with a natural live-in-the-studio feeling. Never heard a first press stereo so I can't compare, but at this time it's likely separate mixes were made. First US on Imperial in stereo (LP-12377) and as mono promo (LP-9377) came with partly other cover design. Also originally issued in Germany, France, Italy, Canada and South Africa. Reissued 2009 on vinyl by US Sundazed (LP 5072). UK 2013 remastered CD on Esoteric Recordings (ECLEC 2416). Premiere UK had structured label as shown here on red vinyl, fully laminated sleeve and a silver pic insert (missing with this copy). (YMÖ*) (ÄHÅR*) (ÄZC*) (GÖJ*) (FSÄ*)