Customer Reviews

Cosmic Sounds

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
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YEEEE-HAAWWW!!! Some big record industry type finally got a clue and released "The Zodiac/Cosmic Sounds" on CD after I've been searching for over 20 years! What's next---world peace?

The same day I discovered the CD release of the Gina Bachauer/Sir John Gielgud collaboration on the Bertrand/Ravel work Gespard de la Nuit (from about the same time period I guess, musta been something in the air)! Do we now get hit by the asteroid?

I bought this album in 68 or 69, when it was still current, and have cherished it ever since. A roomate of mine at college turned me on to it. I replaced it once soon after, having melted it in the back seat car window. At some juncture I elected to "clean" the record with one of those "record cleaning" rags you picked up at a discount department store and, gee whiz, I musta added too much water (the package said to add water "when needed"). The result of which was that I added a thin "crust" (when it dried) to the grooves of that, and a significant number of other greatly loved record albums I owned. Luckily, my record collection wasn't that large in those days. They still played, albeit with a new background noise, and sometimes the gum gathered in the grooves, causing them to skip.

So this is, like, GREAT TIDINGS indeed, to me, man, to learn of its availability again. Hallelujah!! Another lp/CD I recommend along this line is Graham Bond's "Holy Magick" (luckily, also now available), for all you mystics out there. The first 3 Tyrannosaurus Rex lps, "U" and others by The Incredible String Band, early Donovan, the first 4 or 5 Caravan albums, "Mr. Fantasy" by Traffic, "Their Satanic Majesties Request" by the Rolling Stones, first 7 Moody Blues lps, "In The Court Of The Crimson King"---King Crimson, "Stand Up", "Benefit" by Jethro Tull, The Doors, early Pink Floyd, "Wheels Of Fire" by Cream, the first 2 Renaissance albums (w/ Keith & Jane Relf), "Present Tense" by Sagittarius, "These Things Too", others by Pearls Before Swine, I could go on...

60s or no, the music, much of it played on exotic instruments, is timeless. Visions of Greek temples, Hindu, ancient Egyptian, Atlantean, are summoned up. Ethereal and uncanny, eerie and mysterious... There must be a God, after all.

In regards to one previous review---I don't even own a bathrobe, but I was living during the time of this lp, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. Otherwise, I'd be listening to **** and thinking that it's great, not having anything currently better to compare it to. Music (and I use the term loosely) which can best be described, borrowing a line from Shakespeare, as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Now, I'm not down on all post 60s pop music, I even own and love some albums from early 90s bands (about as far as I could continue), it's just too few and far between. Recording technology has grown marvelously but, alas! Creativity and imagination, not to mention inspiration, have become inevitable casualties to crass commercialism and pretentious rich-kid posing, each trying to act like little crackerjack Jim Morrisons, Lou Reeds, Melanies, or something. Faux darkness, faux nihilism. Ho hum (yyaaaawwwnnn...)

The pioneering music on this lp stands on its own, but the spoken word does it no injustice, to say the least. It may be funny to, say, people whose idea of reading is the sports or sales section of the newspaper, or the pop-ups of MTV music videos, but I find no fault with the narrative. The theatrical vocalizations add another dimension of drama to the creation, and these brief, poetic descriptions of the astrological signs are as true to the mark as the proverbial Sagittarian arrow.

So, pour a glass of wine, and/or imbibe your favorite sacrament. This is an album best listened to at night ("must be played in the dark", as the album jacket admonishes), in a candle-lit (scented, of course) room, with a view out the window of the sky. Black lights and posters optional. Oh yeah, and don't forget the incense. What else is there?

"six times the chimes of karma,
free, in turn, the eternal harmony..."

© 2003 RAPWreckerds

I'd nearly forgotten about this offbeat gem from the 1960s -- how wonderful to find it available on CD after so long! It's a perfect artifact of that time, reminding us that the willingness to be silly & ridiculous was a virtue then, as it encouraged creativity in totally unexpected directions. Ah, to take creative risks as naturally as breathing ... (A pity that attitude is frowned upon today.) Trippy, goofy fun, a vista of dazzling colors seen with the widest of star-filled eyes ... a world that can't revel in something like this psychedelic delight is all the poorer for it!

The Zodiac, the greatest semi-band in the world? This little piece of work is their only album together, though many of them had and would work together again in other stuff. Anyhoohas, the music is excellent, and the narration is...we, the narration is utterly 60s. It says "Must Be Played In The Dark" on the cover, and that's approporiate, but for the words, an additional "Must be Played While Stoned" would be nice. Cyrus Faryar has a cool voice, but Jac Wilson's words are so dated and sound so silly now that it sounds totally absurd. My dad laughs every time he hears the words, expecially "six men and six trees" on Taurus.

The Moog is hot stuff on this one. PaulBeaver blows off some sweet riffs. Emil Richards shows off fine percussive tricks, Hal Blaine shows fine drumming, finer than any of his session work. Carol Kaye has some fine bass goin' too. Bud Shank can creep you out with his flute work, Nobody knows the guitar players' names, which is sad, 'cause they give this a hot California acid rock feel that makes me wonder when Grace Slick will jump in. Wilson's poetry sounds pretty Jim Morrison also!

Highlights:

Leo-Lord Of Lights, this is the happiest song on the album. Real coo, guitar funk there!

Taurus-The Voluptuary: Heavy Metal synth blasts the opening riff into youe ears and some creepy flute keeps you goin.

Sagittarius-The Versatile Daredevil: Circus music gone mad. Swirling sythns tricks and Cyrus's slightly crazy vocals make this worthwhile

Capricorn-The Uncapricious Climber: More creepy flute and some exotic synth make this is cool little piece of ghost rock.

In my personal list of the Ten Best Rock Albums, this is right there at ten! Believe me, the narration is a bit silly, but the voice si cool and the music is top notch! This is one truly forgotten classic.

In a time when most fans of the 60's and Elektra Records think only of the Doors, this album is one of a handful of standouts from that label and is among the first wave of releases that occurred when they went from a folk label to a progressive rock label. Other notable releases included Clear Light, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Love, all available on CD.

The Zodiac is a unique piece of late 60's psychedelia, a mixture of prose and electonic music best played on Halloween with candles and incense in the background. These 12 songs representing the signs of the Zodiac evoke powerful 35 year old memories to me and my contemporaries who enjoyed this album alongside other great Elektra releases, especially the Doors.

While I was proud to have a home rolled CD copy of this album from a mint, sealed LP, the quality of the CD is impeccable, revealing nuances of percussion and other instrumentation that I had not previously heard.

This album is a worthy addition to the libary of any serious aficionado of 60's rock. Until its release on CD, it was at the very top of my list of albums I most wanted to see released on CD.

I've had this album for most of my life.

I bought the LP in 1967, gave it to my best girl, and bought another copy for myself. When it went out of print and stayed that way for over 30 years, I made a CD bootleg of it. Why?

Well, the incredibly inventive and innovative music is one reason. Both Roger Waters and Justin Hayward (Pink Floyd and the Moody Blues respectively) mentioned this album as the inspiration for their first big album ("Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" and "Days of Future Passed" respectively). You can hear the influence in the Floyd's instrumentation, and in the recited poetry of the Moodies: "Cold-hearted orb that rules the night..."

Another reason is that it's one of very few recordings I've come across (excluding Gustav Holst's warhorse, "The Planets" of course) that actually has some astrological validity: most such efforts were blatantly exploitative and mindlessly inaccurate. Just plain awful. But this album actually tried to do justice to the subject matter. Consider this excerpt from "Scorpio - The Passionate Hero": "Passion is the true aphrodisiac. Need is a burning journey... To be afraid, and not care that you are afraid, is the courage of which Scorpio is made." That's not bogus faux Uncle Tom astrology - it's about as eloquent and on-target as you can be in two minutes and fifty-one seconds.

There's sadly nothing else to which I can compare this album, because its peers were such egregious garbage. I'm so glad to see it back in print, I bought it again on CD, even though I still have two LPs and my own pirate CD.

A toast: to absent friends. Enjoy this CD, if it's to your taste - it's the real stuff, man. And that's a very rare thing anymore.

Simply put, this is the best psychedelic exploitation record I've ever heard, full of combo organs, sitars, flutes, early moog and wonderfully ridiculous spoken-word passages, like those that the Moody Blues later built their careers on. Cheese factor aside, Mort Garson's compositons and arrangements are excellent, better music than many genuine psych bands produced. Listen closely and you'll hear where The Dukes of Stratosphear got the guitar line for "You're My Drug."

The more I listen to this CD, the more I enjoy it. I'd love to put together a tribute band and play these tunes live.

Google "Mort Garson", and you'll find information about a number of strange albums he made after this one. Any chance we'll ever get CD reissues of "Wozard of Iz", "Electronic Hair Pieces", Lucifer's "Black Mass", Ataraxia's "The Unexplained", Z's "Music for Sensual Lovers", or maybe a "Signs of the Zodiac" box set?

This collection of Zodiac music/spoken word is burned into my memory. A fellow music maniac discovered this album (yes, they were vinyl) shortly after its release in '67. The recommendation to listen in the dark was on target. Simply close your eyes and drift with the vocal and moog mix. You needn't have been ripped in order to appreciate the journey

(I wasn't the first time). An "Old Head" collection staple!

Anyone (like myself) who enjoyed the psychedelic music of the 60's and 70's, should love this album. Each sign of the Zodiac is portrayed with unique music and poetry making the entire album one huge song.

Just last night I was considering digging out this album from the closet, getting my turntable down from the attic, putting it in working order, and somehow hooking it up to my computer so I could burn a CD. I had no idea so many others knew about this obscure masterpiece. Anyone reading these reviews already knows about this work of art, so there's not much I can say. I've been searching for the CD off and on for 20 years.

Great classic music but poorly remastered onto CD!

I own both the original album and this CD. The album has full dynamic range with excellent sound. Unfortuately this CD was run through a volume compression device that lowers the loud passages while raising the soft passages of the music. The result is a "louder" but far less interesting recording. If you are listening to this CD in a car, with the windows open, you might like the volume compression, as it allows you to hear the music over loud background noise. But otherwise this is a serious type of audio distortion that is present in many recent CDs.