MINT VINYL 1972 ORIG FROLK HAVEN APEX OF HIGH ACID ARCHIVES PSYCH PROG

$

105

                 FROLK HAVEN

             At The APEX of HIGH

                     USA - LRS RT 6032 (PRIVATE)

MINT VINYL (see full details below) ...

Original issue of very limited production from 46 years ago...always been rare!

EXCEEDINGLY RARE USA-private pressing LP from 1972 by Frolk Haven, “At the Apex of High” – a true homemade low budget pressing if there ever was one. Now if you can get past the wonderfully-crude cover art.

scarce LYRICS insert included!

This psychedelic acid trip offers plenty of free-form insanity-wing Captain Beefheart, Zappa and the twilight zone.  Features a young Stuart Copeland on drums a while before he would join the Police and strike it rich. 

The core of the record hits the bulls-eye in minimalistic off the wall acid madness and is often compared to some of the early works of Ya Ho Wa 13 .... The instrumentation is varied delivering very adventurous psych jams, amid surprising  melody then backed & fronted by savory chaotic strangeness ...

The opening track begins with some intense thrashing and burning, and so much dissonance it comes out overdriven through their little Radio Shack "Tandy" mixing board – Stuart’s flailing drums are double tracked, the vocals are oddly distorted (probably unintentionally), and you can actually hear the guys playing with the production board controls. It’s like King Crimson’s “RED” played by the Shaggs, and goes on for 12 and a half minutes. And they call it “Oracle of Delphi” too…go figure. After this 'out-there' opening, things get even more interesting with the spacy jazz freakout “Cyclation”, which features some great wah wah guitar action. And much, MUCH better when the interstellar overdrive kicks in on “Zonation”, a series of monklike chants over an oscillating sine wave and some heady space synth and moog FX, which proves that at least ONE member of the Police owned a copy of “Ummagumma.” The freakishly demented “Back Up!” sounds like Captain Beefheart attempting to cover “Purple Haze” on open mike night. Over some squealing freeform saxophone and some heavily distorted buzzing fuzz guitar, the rantings of lead vocalist and guitarist Charles Hugo Nowak “Zilch” Ostman II play like a Village beat poet reciting the high school yearbook musings of a young Gene Roddenberry: “Dance to the rhythm of the paisley skies – Out of the mist, what is that I see? A stray time warp coming straight at me, and all the colors before my eyes…Back up, back up! This is a nightmare!” Perhaps this strange, mystifying album is best summed up by a line from “Quest” = “This is the only window that faces the cortex of the mind.”

Both Stuart and Charles were in college in England when they recorded this bizarre homemade album – but make no mistake, this is NO lo-fi basement garage band. These are the musings of a couple of honor roll students heavily into Star Trek, the Outer Limits, free jazz and Captain Beefheart.

IF you didn't 'get it' from  the above, The "Fan-Man" further injected thoughts that went this way::::

The album opens with the 12-minute "Oracle of Delphi".  It starts with an apocalyptic outburst: the harrowing bass line leading the way for a serious of vicious assaults on percussion and guitar.  This Gives way to post-apocalyptic, eerily quiet meanderings on guitar and clarinet, with soft-spoken vocal passages.  All in all, a fascinating epic.  "Idiomatic Interlude" is Actually a pretty well-developed instrumental with odd rhythms and quirky clarinet playing, very soulful in fact.  "Cyclation" rounds out side A, starting on another haunting and dreamy instrumental passage before the more traditional song form steps forward, with Charles Stewart and delivering the Experience Hendrix-styled powerhouse performance. Side B of Apex is less impressive than A but still very good.  "Zonation of Galactic Cosmodial Entities" is an effect-oriented but instrumental imaginative, while "Back Up!"  is a soft of electric folk tune with the usual gracings of clarinet and decidedly weird lyrical subject matter (getting drugged, kidnapped, and hurled into the time warp).  "Quest" is perhaps the most enjoyable tune on the album, opening with a guitar solo done to such high tones That It sounds like weeping.  The somewhat symphonic and very emotional song.  The wittily titled "7th Shakra" is a 10-minute instrumental, starting with the verse sinister / chorus before Charles Ostman abandons form and goes completely loopy on guitar and clarinet.  Very introspective stuff.  The one minus is que Charles throws too many solos on top of the verse / chorus.

Oracle Of Delphi   
Idiomatic Interlude   
Cyclation 

B:  
Zonation Of Galactic Cosmoidal Entities   
Back Up!   
Quest   
7th Shakra

CONDITION: The cover: rated: Well, it WAS a M- copy that attracted moisture to the top right corner area causingrippling at wear, the complete rest of the cover is sharp M- clean & solid. Call it "VG" to be safe, but that's the story ...   aside from the h20 damage to the right corner, it still has a fresh appearance -- there are no delete marks, no split seams, no bends, and no writing  ...

The vinyl: Rated: M- TOP COPY all glossy with very enjoyable CLEAN audio  ...play back should not reveal alarming distracting surface problems ...  both labels are clean

      A cool addition to anyone's music library!

SEE: SELLERS OTher items for similar cool sounds for "head" people...

EFFICIENT/CAREFUL GRADING

All imperfections are noted both cover & record