Elysian Field — Elysian Field 1968-1971 (USA, Garage-Psychedelic Rock)

Elysian Field — Elysian Field 1968-1971 (USA, Garage-Psychedelic Rock)

Released as the third part in the Louisville Music series by the Florida-based GearFab Records, this recording contains the work of a band that evolved from Soul, Inc. (featured on the first two of GearFab's Louisville series) in 1968. According to Rick Mattingly's concise liner notes, Marvin Maxwell, Frank Bugbee and Jim Settle left Soul, Inc. to pursue a different musical vision. Throughout their history, the band altered membership by adding (and, other times, subtracting) Gary Johnson, Mark Miceli, Dennis Ledford, Rudy Helm, Steve McNicol and Denny Lile.

While the sound quality of the selections is a little rough since they were dubbed directly from aging Mylar (and two were copied directly from test acetates found in Maxwell's home), you can still sample a band that searched for a sound it couldn't seem to lock in. That's important because Elysian Field was always daring itself to go for something different. You can hear The Jam do the same thing in their Greatest Hits recording. It contains tracks from the band's inception as a punk trio in the UK, then its move into new wave, then horn-based soul, then pop.

This volume of Elysian Field is different, however, because it documents an effort and, like classical mythology, it also teaches. It is a dispatch to musicians in the future. The messages? Try. Play.

The band's lineups throughout its three years as a loose unit are key to how the tracks are arranged in the recording. It opens with the tunes recorded when the band included its best-known lineup of Maxwell, Settle, Ledford, Miceli and Lile, at the center of its relatively short career. The sound then was at once rough and rootsy ("You Again" or "Good Time Living"), cut with shards of slick psychedelia and proto-punk attitude ("Mother Hate," "I Think I Can't Live Without You").

01. Mother Hate - 2:51
02. You Again - 2:45
03. Didn't It Feel Good - 2:48
04. Reservation - 2:25
05. I Think I Can't Live Without - 3:02
06. I Hate You - 2:51
07. Good Time Living - 2:53
08. Bed Of Roses - 1:41
09. 24 Hours Of Loneliness - 2:01
10. Strange Changes - 1:43
11. Kind Of Man - 2:43
12. Alone On Your Doorstep - 2:18
13. Old Oak Tree - 2:55
14. Keep Her - 4:01
15. Canada - 4:54
16. On My Way - 3:56
17. Revolution's In The Air - 4:00
18. Let The Music Take You Down - 4:45
19. Still I Want You - 1:53
20. Man On Fire - 3:42
21. Sundown Red - 3:25

Personnel:
Frank Bugbee - guitar
Denny Lile - guitar, vocals
Jim Settle - bass, vocals
Gary Johnson - bass, vocals
Mark Miceli - guitar
Dennis Ledford – acoustic guitar, bass
Rudy Helm - bass
Marvin Maxwell - drums

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