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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
E-Ticket For The River Styx, August 25, 2001
Before "stoner rock" there was...well, "stoned rock". Unlike today's pot-rock Iommi-come-latelies, the head bands of yesteryear catered to imbibers of hallucinogenics, which meant banks of vintage keyboards, echoplex and wah-wah on the guitars, and generally bad vocalists hiding behind weird, would-be spacy fx. Especially the Germans, who seemed to never get over "Interstellar Overdrive" and all of whom tried to out-Floyd Floyd. Brainticket weren't Germans (they were Swiss, I believe) but they worked similar territory, and are actually one of the era's better and more musical purveyors of "head music". I was introduced to their music when the local altered-state guru of the neighborhood played me their first, COTTONWOOD HILL, one lava-lamped night. It was plenty memorable, a loose-limbed space jam played over the stream-of-consciousness babbling of one very, very blitzed girl "vocalist". Totally berserk and yet oddly compelling. I tried to find my own copy and could only locate this, their third and probably their best, 40+ way-out-there minutes based on Egyptian mythology. Led by multi-instrumentalist (now I'm only gonna spell this ONCE, so pay attention) Joel Vandroogenbroeck, Brainticket here fashion a trippy, flowing, altered-consciousness epic split into eight "songs". Synthesizers drone and churn evocatively over the rhythm section, a woman intones the spoken-word hippie-mystical lyrics while Joel V simultaneously repeats them in guttural whispers....probably sounds awful, you're no doubt thinking; yet there's something else here, a truly eerie otherworldly quality that makes the whole thing work. By the time CELESTIAL OCEAN winds down to the finale, "Visions", the trippiness comes to a halt and we're treated to one of the most exquisitely soaring piano-pieces ever committed to wax, as good as anything Wakeman or Emerson have ever offered, which moves from romantic-classical to an almost-latin groove before a brief reprise of the earlier hallucinogenic synthesizers. I guarantee that, once heard, you will not be able to get this track's melody-line out of your head, it is THAT good. All in all, a damned unique album: I'm hard-pressed to think of anything to compare it to. I was amazed to find it has been domestically (and affordably) reissued on CD, but if you're feeling bold, you might be pleasantly surprised by this.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brainticket - 'Celestial Ocean' (Purple Pyramid/Cleopatra), December 7, 2003
This fantastic Krautrock record was originally released in 1973 as it was the band's third album.I know several fans right here in the states that actually remember this band.To best describe Brainticket is to imagine classic Gong with more of a complex song structure and perhaps a dash of early King Crimson thrown in.Best tracks here include "Era Of Technology",the super-trippin' "The Space Between" and the no less than beautifully done "Cosmic Wind"."Egyptian Kings" and "Jardins" also make this an extravagant listening experience as well.Line-up:Joel Vandroogenbroeck-synth,guitar,flute&vocals,Carole Muriel-electronic synthesizer&vocals and Barney Palm-drums.In the liner notes,it's revealed that Brainticket STILL lives to this day.Believe they released a new disc awhile back.Recommended.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A one way ticket for your brain - - - - - - - - -, March 15, 2003
This is an album by a very strange European band that deserves better than what the idiots at Cleopatra have done. What was supposed to be a seamless album (songs segueing into each other) has these INFURIATING intrusive 3 second pauses inbetween each track, thereby ruining the continuity of this wonderfully diverse and imaginative piece of work. This label also screwed up an Ash Ra Tempel CD by putting the wrong track numbers for each track. If you value and enjoy music, you won't purchase anything from this 2-bit operation. Unfortunately, they seem to have obtained the rights to many wonderful '70's releases by obscure bands....
Anyway, I love this album dearly - it has appeared in my dreams before, which is fitting - it is music of pure imagination, and more evocative than much of what you'll hear being produced nowadays. Brainticket RULES - also check out Voyage!
P.S. Hopefully the reissue of this CD has been corrected and restored to its original intentions.
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