About

About “Pie in the Sky”

When I first heard Gonja Sufi’s album A Sufi And A Killer in 2010 I had no idea, how much The Gaslamp Killer, the producer of the album, had sampled or more specificly used in big chunks of the original songs from the 1960s and 1970s by the Turkish musician Erkin Koray. It blew me away, I tapped into a whole universe of amazing music that I’ve never heard of. I found more and more incredible music from the Hippie period not only from Turkey, Japan or Germany but from all countries and continents. In 2012 started a Tumblr named Kopfleuchten to document my findings and to have a collection of my favorite psychedelic tracks. My new blog Pie In The Sky is the continuation of Kopfleuchten but I hope it offers more info and a better overview what was going on where and when.

In times of great personal and artistic freedom in Europe, UK and the US but also in historically oppressed countries like Iran, Egypt or Turkey musical styles began to mix and led to a fascinating cultural crossover. The experiments of these musicians and producers in the late 1960s and early 1970s are the foundation of the explosion of musical genres later in the 20th century’s postmodern music. Listen and find the roots of Hard-, Grunge-, Noise- and Punk-Rock, as well as Progressive Rock, Jazz and “World Music” and electronic music from Kraut-Rock, Techno to Dubstep. Who would have thought that Shoegaze was invented by a Japanese band in the 1960s, the first Punk band is from Peru and Acid House was first played in India?

Sample based Hip-Hop music played also an important role in the revival of psychedelic music with DJ’s like J Dilla, Madlib or The Gaslamp Killer digging for rare grooves on forgotten vinyl from all over the world. I ’ll note the connections to contemporary music when ever I can find the time to do so.

I’m using the term “psychedelic” very loosely and I don’t want to propagate drug use, extreme political or religious views nor I want to be offensive against genders, races or sexual habits. If you’re offended by any information, lyrics or particular tracks, please let me know.

 

Please support the artists and buy vinyl, here are some labels and shops as a starting point for you:

A Musik

Alien Transistor

Analog Africa

Anazitisi Records

Barbès Records

Black Pearl Records

Born Bad Records

Constellation Records

Discogs

El Paraiso Records

Emerald & Doreen Records

Finders Keepers Records

Forced Exposure

Fortuna Records

Green Brain Krautrock

Groovie Records

Guerssen Records/ Pharaway Sounds

HHV

Jakarta Records

Jazzman Records

Light In The Attic Records

Moi J’connais Records

Mr. Bongo Records

Mucho Gusto Records

Munster Records

Normal Records

Now Again Records

Shadoks

Soul Jazz / Sounds of the universe

Soundway Records

Superfly Records

Spoon Records

Stones Throw Records

Strut Records

Sublime Frequencies

Tektosag Records

Tiger’s Milk Records

Vampi Soul

 

Great blogs I visit regularly:

Awesome Tapes From Africa

Aquarium Drunkard

Dublab

Ghostcapital

Global Psychedelia

Hindustani B-Music

It’s Psychedelic, Baby

Madrotter Treasure Hunt

Mutant Sound

Psych Funk

Radio Diffusion

 

Radioshows:

Global Psychedelia – The New Elastic Infinite @ WEFT

Reverberation Radio

The FreakOuternational Radio Show

Vas Deferens Organization (Mutant Sound) @ Dublab

 

Let’s enjoy the music, mighty people from all over the world.

Yours, Oliver