SCARCE 1971 ORIG "CUSTOM" MIRROR ? BEEFHEART CAPTAIN MAGIC BAND Acid Blues JAMS

$

37

                    ORIGINAL 1970 FIRST PRESS

WITH CUSTOM BROKEN MIRROR GATEFOLD COVER DESIGN

                                  "MIRROR MAN"

    CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

                     and The

                  Magic Band

       ..|/\|...............................................|/\|..

      USA - (psychedelic design) Buddah Records - BDS 5077

MINT VINYL THAT PLAYS CLEAN !

Original...1971 very hard to find first printing with the die-cut gatefold cover depicting shattered glass window ... the glass shards are near always found bent, ripped or missing = (see condition below)

A fifty-two minute avant-garde blues jam that may not be diverse, but is still incredibly consistent and weird.

Mirror Man was created during the transitional period between the aptly titled (comparatively speaking) Safe as Milk and extra-surreal Trout Mask Replica, Mirror Man consists of fragments from an abandoned project that was once known as It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper. Here, the group play LONG blues jams, all but one extending beyond ten minutes in length. Unlike other psychedelic blues from the period, guitar solos are not the focus. Most of the time, the rhythm section propels the action, in a sense foreshadowing the sound later dubbed Krautrock. When there is soloing, it is relegating to Don Van Vliet's harmonica or his "first-time musette" (reportedly a shenhai, an Indian oboe). The result is rather curious, relegating fairly straight-forward, often directionless blues jams damn-near into otherworldly territory. Unlike other Beefheart releases, the best moments on this record occur when Van Vliet ISN'T singing. So while it lacks the full-blown (organized) chaos or the fractal poetry of the records that would follow, it transforms the traditional blues into another "tarotplane" of existence.After the release of 1967’s Safe as Milk on the Buddah record label, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band decided that their next project was going to be a double album entitled It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper. For an unknown reason, the project was abandoned and the material Beefheart considered as the better half was re-recorded and put onto Strictly Personal, which was released on the label Blue Thumb in 1968. However, after releasing two more albums on Straight, Buddah decided in 1971 that they would release four of the outtakes from the project as though it were a studio album. This disguised outtakes collection was given the title Mirror Man and is widely considered The Magic Band’s fifth studio album, despite its release not being approved by them.

Despite Mirror Man being another sad case of behind-the-back distribution, it’s actually a pretty great album. All four songs are long bluesy jams that slowly progress like a well oiled machines, without a dull moment at any point. The opener, the nineteen minute epic “Tarotplane,” borrows lyrics from Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, and other famous blues legends and infuses them together throughout the song. All along the way, a playful harmonica and jamming guitar and drums support the vocals. Two of the songs, “Kandy Korn” and “Mirror Man,” are alternate and longer versions of two of the songs on Strictly Personal, yet they have more interesting compositions than their shorter counterparts. Overall, Strictly Personal pales in comparison to Mirror Man, despite Mirror Man technically being an outtake album.

If there's any negatives to be said, they might derive from how similar the moods are throughout, or perhaps how dense the tracks are - though this is acceptable, as the album is essentially a massive jam session. Despite being fifty-two minutes in length, there isn’t much more to say about it due to its simple jam-based nature. Anyone who likes avant-garde blues, long flipped-out solos, or even music with a dense consistency, should easily enjoy Mirror Man. If anything, it’s one of The Magic Band’s most semi-commercial sounding records to date while still truly weird as in a good thing.

                                           Track listing

1. A
2. Tarotplane 19:00
3. Kandy Korn 8:00
4. B
5. 25th Century Quaker 9:50
6. Mirror Man 15:38