Customer Reviews

Dark Shadows

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I'm not sure it's even possible to do this album justice by describing it. If you haven't heard it, you'll think I'm exaggerating. If you have heard it, and really listened to it, you'll know I haven't even scratched the surface of it. However, I will do what I can here. Imagine a box in the closet of a musician. The box holds tapes not heard for many years. The musician in this case is Bill Miller, who played with Roky Erickson in the Aliens. Electric autoharp is the instrument he plays. The tapes in the box are from before the time Miller spent in the Aliens. Some have indicated that Bill Miller did not want the tapes to be heard. However, Mark Migliore of Rockadelic records heard about the Cold Sun, tracked the album down, and subsequently released it to the world. Out of the closet and into the minds of... several hundred people. The Rockadelic issue was excellent, but was limited, and became very valuable quite quickly, fetching several hundred dollars easily prior to this reissue. I was one of the fortunate ones: I was given a copy in 1994 as I was fortunate to know and work with the Rockadelic label. Other people I know also had this record, and we are all record collectors. We talk about psych records all the time. However, when the subject of the Cold Sun record ever came up, it was spoken of in a wholly different way. Listening to this album is like entering the temple of psychedelia. Many times I heard the record played for somebody who had not heard it before. Often they would freak out just a bit. It takes a while to realize what's going on with this record. I'm not sure I know yet! But, from listening, it becomes apparent that one of the elements is a reverence for the music of the 13th Floor Elevators. This element is deep and wide. But there is other stuff going on here. When you first put the record on, you hear these strange chords. Blocks of sound. Sounds like a guitar, but not like a guitar. That's the electric autoharp. Not a gimmick, oh no, but a new approach to rock music. There is a primitive element which comes through, and one might expect this to be the way the record is going to sound all the way through. Well, yes and no. Every song has its surprises. I hear now not just Elevators' influence, but maybe some Velvet Underground too. Vocally and musically, although this may be totally unintentional, a result of like minds on different paths. The music is intense, driven, mystical, enlightening, baffling and awe inspiring if you're into it. It's not everybody's cup of tea for sure. Speaking of tea, what is the flower referred to in the song Twisted Flower? Could it be left-handed cigs, jazz smokes, weed, reefer? Possibly. Maybe not. It's hard to tell. The record sure sound stony to me. This reissue has liner notes by Jello Biafra (!) which indicate that he thinks it's the best psychedelic album he knows of. Hey Jello, you may be right! It's sure way up there. Audiophile freaks might run scared from it though. Might fear for their speakers! This is not the product of a big studio in New York or LA. It does not sound like it was produced by George Martin. It sounds like it was recorded in the dark, in a cave, in a studio in the sky, in the far future or the very distant past. Like it was recorded on Mars, or a sub-oceanic echo chamber. This record wasn't made because somebody wanted to. It was made because it had to be. It had to BE! And it is! The musicianship is excellent. The drums and bass hold everything together. Excellent. The autoharp... it's great. The guitars are excellent too, alternately rocking and melodic. Sometimes clean, sometimes rather fuzzed out. Or is that just my brain? The vocals, the lyrics, I don't know what to say. The singing is serious. It's like an odd cross between Roky Erickson and Lou Reed. There is a tone of desperation which really makes some of these songs. The lyrics seem very mystical and intense. Existential, philosophical perhaps. But what do they say? I do not know. But I keep listening, and I think that little by little, it will come to me. And, when I think I've got a grip it will slip away and I will begin again. Now, it's available again from World In Sound with two added tracks. Good news to fans of psychedelic music, no doubt. The cd sounds great, mastered just fine. Bill Miller, wherever you may be, you did some amazing work here, with all of your cohorts. I hope that some day, you will go to that closet, open another box, and send the tapes to the mystical pressing plant in the sky... or get out your 'harp, call the guys and.....

this has been my favorite album since it came in the mail a month ago. The music is so incredibly strange that I can't really describe it, nor can I stop listening to it. It's like a stray transmission from some alien radio station. That's not to say that it is full of gimmicky weird noises and sound effects, because there's none of that here. The music itself is bizarre enough.

From what I've gathered, the brains behind Cold Sun (Billy Miller) initially didn't want these recordings released. Not surprising, really, because it has an incredibly intimate feel to it, like something recorded in a cramped and darkened bedroom with an old tape multitracker. Maybe it was, I don't know. I do know that this album is for real lovers of psychedelia and the obscure. This is far, far, from Beatles style psychedelic music... it's much darker. I think Cold Sun would frighten the fab four. If you're thinking of ordering this record, be warned: you might not be ready for Cold Sun.

Lastly I'll attempt to describe the music itself. The rhythm section sounds like the most technically proficient portion of the band: the drumming is manic and jazz-like at times, and the bass lines are very inventive and very solid. The autoharping is cool; don't really know what to say about it because I have no other autoharping to compare it to besides Ma Carter's. It's not like that. The tone of it is really mellow, completely at odds with the manner in which it's played. Guitar is mostly fuzzed out and constantly wandering all over the place, leaving chordal playing to the autoharp. The lyrics are at least as out there as the music, and consistently brilliant... "Napoleon is standing fast on the battleground / bullets, cannon roaring past, yet he doesn't hear a sound...". Singing isn't stellar but it's unique in a good way, and ranges from deadpan delivery to a desperate raspy yelp. The recording itself is not the best... like i said, it sounds like it was recorded in someone's bedroom. The cymbals are almost overbearing at times, and the musicianship is (at times) loose to the point of sloppiness. That's not at all a complaint, it's just part of the feel of the record.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, but an entire book could probably be written about this album... in fact, one should be.

Those thinking that this album will be reminiscent of the fabled Sixties Texas Garage Rock Sound will be in for a major disappointment. There's a reason this album was never released in 1970; it sucks! It's nothing but a bunch of meandering, devoid-of-melody, "music" with horrible vocalizations. Listeners will be able to listen to Billy Miller learning to play his autoharp as well.

There's been a lot of talk that this album is some sort of missing link between legendary groups like the Velvet Underground, the Doors, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Golden Dawn and more modern music. Uhhhh... the four groups above could do something that Cold Sun, seemingly, cannot accomplish: carry a tune.

Really? It sounds like Miller and his cohorts had been listening to the first Yes album and the first King Crimson album and were trying to affect some sort of "Prog-Rock" sound. But, again, Yes and King Crimson knew what a melody was. The effort isn't helped that Billy Miller can put an alley cat, howling at night on a fence, to shame. Omigod! It's horrific.

Miller's vocalizations, combined with the tuneless music, make for an exercise in pain upon listening. Just in case you're thinking that, like Captain Beefheart, Cold Sun just needs to be "appreciated" well... Captain Beefheart was a genius; Cold Sun is a bunch of, gawd-awful, posers.

Looking back, this whole Cold Sun emergence lately seems to be the invention of Patrick Lundborg aka: the Lama. Lundborg has written much prose about how wonderful Cold Sun and Billy Miller are. To me, Lundborg is trying to give Cold Sun props; Billy is his buddy. More like, Lundborg is trying to prop up the sagging carcass of Cold Sun.

Beware! Buy this album at your own risk!