This is the first time this album originally released in 2001 has been put out on Vinyl and the special edition also has a bonus 12" single, that isn't included with my review copy, of led Zeppelins Ten Years Gone and Can's Vitamin C. For anyone who doesn't know who Circulatory System are, they feature Will Cullen Hart from Olivia Tremor Control and Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel within their ranks.
The album opens with Yesterdays World that reminds me of Lol Coxhill covering I Am The Walrus it's heavily indebted to the post 67 era Beatles and if that's your bag you'll love this opening track, for me it's one of the weakest things on the album being rather too derivative apart from the woodwind section.
Prehistoric is far odder than the opener and has a wonderfully smashed on Mushrooms weirding out feeling to it, with whisper sung vocals and odd percussion it's very cool. Diary Of Wood is sport of Psych folk melodramatic quiet loud vignette with lots of odd noises coming in and out of the mix.
Round is the first long song at 6 minutes of highly detailed and involved psychodrama with skittery percussion, odd bell like sounds and all sorts of other stuff going on to take you well out of yourself it feels episodic almost rollercoaster like in the mood changes as the song goes on.
Joy is a gentle evocation of the things that bring them Joy no matter what's going on in the world, it almost feels like they are trying to update The Incredible String Bands musical ethos, if I didn't know otherwise I'd expect this tune to be made by a band from Canterbury.
The Lovely Universe has a bit of The Whole World sound to it a good out there avant Psychedelic song. Round is a sort of nursery rhyme gentle odd folk song with some birdsong noises toward the end.
Inside Blasts opens with some gentle accordion and feels almost like a looped lullaby ready to lull us into a gentle dream state.
Illusion is whimsical psychedelic folk that gently draws you into its soundscape. Waves Of Bark And Light sounds like one of those nuggets that turn up on obscure comps of rare Psychedelia and prog rock from any time between the late 60's to late 80's it's a very cool song.
Now feels like it would have been very Now in about 1972 or 3 if you lived in the Swedish countryside and ate loads of fly agaric.
A Peek seems to seek to marry late 60's Beatlesque vocals to the sound The Silos had on Cuba along with some backwards guitars and hints of Eleanor Rigby and somehow it all works pretty well.
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Fingers is sadly not just enough to give your kids a treat but is a very slight tune indeed a mere sliver. Days To Come (In Photographs) would I guess have pics that look like the cover of tomorrow Never Knows with weird washes and an ektachrome color scheme.
Symbols And Maps is acid hued musical doodles pointing in several directions at once almost all of them with origins in 1967. The Pillow sounds like a cover of some Syd era Pink Floyd song shot through with some proggy touches.
Stars stays in the same Psych prog area and slips by easily as the vocals seem to envelop the room. Should A Cloud Replace A Compass? Is the sort of stupid question you'd expect a particularly dim American to ask, this has all sorts of weird noises it's off center and sounds rather drug damaged.
Time Or Dateline is psychedelic folk pop with the odd diversion or two. They then ask How Long? As if even they are wondering how much more they can get away with in a darkly twisted frazzled psychedelic way.
Your Parades should be an angry bile filled rant against the sorts of people who need to hold parades all the time, but of course instead it's a mellow parade of the sort attended by people who have been on a five day drug bender and suddenly feel in love with everyone they meet as the drum beats out the pace you should be walking in time too.
The album closes with Forever in which they claim they will be immortal in a very slowly strummed style that sounds like they might sing this for ages live rather than less than a minute and a half it actually is.
If this sounds like your sort of album find out more at https://elephant6.com/product/circulatory-system-self-titled-lp/ https://www.facebook.com/CirculatorySystem.E6/
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