Trippy Music Recs?

September 15, 2009 6:23 AM

Trippiest/most psychedelic rock music interludes?

Basically looking for recommendations for trippiest/most psychedelic musical interludes in rock music, particularly from about the mid60s to about 1980. Anything beyond the Beatles or Pink Floyd. And the whole song doesn't have to sound trippy or psychedelic. I'm basically looking for transitions, intros, outros, and such. Small elements of rock songs that sound odd or weird.

posted by geekhorde to Media & Arts (34 answers total)

Middle eight of Hole In My Shoe by Traffic, off their first British album. Out there. A Dave Mason tune.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 6:30 AM on September 15, 2009

Devendra Banhart's Seahorse is like an 8-minute acid trip. I'd listen to it now, but I'm at work and they'd probably look down on me getting high in the office.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:35 AM on September 15, 2009

I hear "psychedelic" and immediately think of Hendrix's Third Stone from the Sun. The whole thing pretty much fits the bull. Also, most of CSN's Wooden Ships is smooth and sort of trippy.
posted by jquinby at 6:39 AM on September 15, 2009

The intro to "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock is the sound of someone realizing he's just been slipped a dose.
posted by Devoidoid at 7:07 AM on September 15, 2009

Would you include live jams by the Grateful Dead. I have many recorded a few of which are very trippy. I could list specific shows that stuck out to me.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:35 AM on September 15, 2009

There's the first four minutes/all of Providence by King Crimson. Likewise the second half of Moonchild from In The Court Of The Crimson King.

Soup by Can is pretty trippy too, particularly the second half, most of which is edited from that video.

If you're counting stuff more recent, then most of half of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's albums are seriously weird. The last three minutes of Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus off The Mars Volta's Frances the Mute is quite odd too. El Ciervo Vulnerado on Amputechture is quite a strange track too, possibly even stranger for ending so abruptly.
posted by opsin at 7:39 AM on September 15, 2009

Krautrock jams - guru guru gets pretty trippy.....

Or Zambian psych

Träd Gräs och Stenar (Swedish)

Selda Bagcan (Turkish)

Silver Apples (NYC)

The Velvet Underground definitely has some of Rock's most trippy interludes too....
posted by bonsai forest at 7:48 AM on September 15, 2009

Jefferson Airplane
Yes
Emerson Lake and Palmer
posted by tman99 at 7:53 AM on September 15, 2009

Ending of Strawberry Fields Forever. Midsection of I Am The Walrus.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 8:23 AM on September 15, 2009

You should check out Art Rock Suite. It's from Goodbye Pop, a great National Lampoon album from 1975 that has not been released on CD. Christopher Guest, Paul Jacobs and Bill Murray, among others, were involved in making the album.
posted by Sculthorpe at 8:25 AM on September 15, 2009

Goddamn, I just typed out a pretty heavy response to this question, and accidentally hit CMD+W one too many times. Well, my uselessness means you're going to get a much more meagre response. Btw, these aren't really sections of more regular tracks, but just buckets of overall trippyness.

The album Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum is going to be appropriate. It's a rainbow-flavoured joyous summer of brain-frying made audible. Here's Forever Heavy and Drippy Eye.

I have no doubt that some of Boredom's work would fit your criteria. Maybe try their album Vision Creation Newsun. Heart was the first track that I found on YT, but the album's worth listening to as a whole experience.

The outro to ODB's Good Morning Heartache is kinda cool.

Acid Mother's Temple are certainly trippy, but I don't know where on earth to start you. This sort of thing looks rubbish on YT but is astonishing live. Starless And Bible Black Sabbath is a common entry point, but is quite heavy. Nevertheless, here's Woman From A Hell from that record.

I can't remember my other links, so that's all I have time for now. Sorry, and I hope that helps somewhat.
posted by Magnakai at 8:26 AM on September 15, 2009

Oh yeah, The Microphones/Mt Eerie had plenty of this. Especially the Microphones stuff, actually.

Solar System's a good example. The intro's a slightly mind-bending transition from the sound landscape of previous track The Sun, followed by a relatively "normal" main section of the song.

Also check out the freely available Seven New Songs Of Mt Eerie I always found the beginning of Wooly Mammoth's Absence quite ethereal. Maybe that's now what you're going for, but hey.
posted by Magnakai at 8:34 AM on September 15, 2009

Oh, also the final section of Bowie's Memory of A Free Festival, at the end of Space Oddity.
posted by jquinby at 8:49 AM on September 15, 2009

almost any album by Julian Cope will have some tripped out stuff on it.
posted by nomisxid at 8:50 AM on September 15, 2009

The Beastie Boys' Something's Got to Give, off Check Your Head. The groove from Kula Shaker's Govinda is pretty righteous, in at least a trippy way. Parts of Massive Attack's Angel, which was used when the president's daughter was slipped ecstasy on The West Wing.
posted by troywestfield at 9:04 AM on September 15, 2009

It's definitely post 1980, but I can't recommend The Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage: Animation Music highly enough. The album is built around a simple musical theme, but between many songs there is a strange snippet of the theme played briefly. In some cases, the snippets have been combined with each other or with weird noise to make what they refer to as "animations."
posted by solipsophistocracy at 9:24 AM on September 15, 2009

You want to explore some Hawkwind.
posted by The Straightener at 9:28 AM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride gets pretty trippy in the middle.
posted by timeistight at 9:41 AM on September 15, 2009

Spirit, 12 dreams of Dr Sardonicus, is full of wonderful trippiness and interludes, and fantastically tuneful as well.
posted by Bron at 11:06 AM on September 15, 2009

The middle section of Queen's The Prophet's Song (starts at about 3:23) is pretty groovy.
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:24 AM on September 15, 2009

Ozric Tentacles have the trippiest albums I've ever heard.
posted by valadil at 11:25 AM on September 15, 2009

Listen to Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta, especially Cassandra Gemini
posted by tumples at 11:39 AM on September 15, 2009

Hocus Pocus by Focus never fails to bring a smile to my face when the yodeling kicks in.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 12:08 PM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

All of Amon Duul II's album Yeti.
posted by medeine at 12:30 PM on September 15, 2009

Oh man, I'm sorry. I didn't see the date requirement. Totally useless!
posted by Magnakai at 12:38 PM on September 15, 2009

Mother earth is pregnant for the third time, and y'all have knocked her up…

Songs:

Maggot Brain—Funkadelic
Wars of Armageddon—Funkadelic
Ultra Violet Light—Von LMO
Vegetable Man—Soft Boys
Dreamer (South Pacific)—Amanda Lear
Moving In Stereo—The Cars
Station to Station—David Bowie
Flying Junk—10cc
A Hidden Trap—Cosmos Factory
Freedom Flight—Shuggie Otis
The Glove—Henry Cow
Goat Willow—Hawkwind
Kurkulu Rida—Erkin Koray
Ladytron—Roxy Music
The House on the Hill—Armando Piazza
The Coming of the Other One—Twink
Take a Stroll Through Your Mind—The Temptations
Planet Caravan—Black Sabbath
My Game of Loving—White Noise
The British Opera—The Beegees
Can You Dig It—The Monkees
I Walk on Guilded Splinters—Dr. John
Space Odyssey—The Byrds
Hideaway—The Electric Prunes
Hot House of Omagarashid—The Yardbirds
Begger's Epitaph—1910 Fruitgum Co.
posted by klangklangston at 12:40 PM on September 15, 2009

Was also going to mention Julian Cope (already mentioned above), but also given your date range, his previous band, The Teardrop Explodes is another good pick. Obviously, it's hard to go wrong with Krautrock: Can, Faust, Amon Duul, etc.
posted by snofoam at 1:13 PM on September 15, 2009

I like Harry Nilsson's Jump Into the Fire
posted by maloon at 1:50 PM on September 15, 2009

I've always loved the guitar solo from Ted Nugent's Stranglehold. Not truly psychedelic, but has sort of a spooky-trippy vibe that I love.
posted by Jawn at 2:27 PM on September 15, 2009

literally everything by the Dukes Of Stratosphear.

Dukes Of Stratosphear
posted by markjamesmurphy at 6:20 PM on September 15, 2009

Response by poster: Interesting suggestions all. Thank you all.
posted by geekhorde at 6:54 PM on September 15, 2009

For your 60s-80s requirement:

The Beach Boys, 'Feel Flows'
The Beach Boys, 'Leaving This Town'
The Byrds, 'Change is Now'
The Byrds, 'Old John Robertson'
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, '1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)'

For more recent trips:

Grandaddy, 'He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot'
Jars of Clay, 'Frail'
The Smashing Pumpkins, 'Drown'
Talk Talk, 'After the Flood'

And for the uninitiated who may be reading:

Pink Floyd, 'Echoes'
Pink Floyd, 'Poles Apart'
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 5:26 AM on September 16, 2009

The bridge of "Amazona" by Roxy Music on "Stranded."
posted by Rash at 8:31 AM on September 16, 2009

Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star is stuffed full of 'em.
posted by Dr.Pill at 5:54 PM on September 19, 2009