VARIATIONS Nador '70 LP rare French Hendrix fuzz psych
$
71
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Description
VERY RARE original heavy psych rock BEAST outta France, of all places! The Variations were considered one of the leading psych rock bands from France, so good they landed opening act slots for such giants as Jimi Hendrix and Cream. They obviously learned quite a bit from Jimi and Eric, merging Jimi's blistering leads and funky rock rhythms with Cream's bludgeoning heavy attack. You might also hear a bit of the Stooges and MC5 in these grooves too, not only in the raw full-speed-ahead attack but there's also some real primal vocal-chord shredding screams here too, a few years before Ian Gillan made this kind of thing popular. There's nothing subtle about this album - it assails you, steamrolls you over, wailing and screaming and laughing with reckless abandon - too funky for punk, too heavy for funk, and too raw for prog rock - you might consider them the Parisian equivalent of early Funkadelic, in a white European broken English kinda way. The album opens with "What A Mess Again", a classic slab of Leslie West/Mountain crunchy, chunky, heavy guitar onslaught, complete with cowbell (gotta have cowbell) and some AMAZING massive power chords that crackle with raw electricity. The drums are like machine guns, pummeling out a rat-a-tat rhythm trying desperately to keep up with the evil steamrolling guitar riff that sounds like something early Sabbath would've come up with if they truly sold their souls to the devil. And the vocals aren't sung as much as they are shrieked - raw, powerful screaming vocals that suggest a possession other than simple narcotics. Gotta hand it to 'em - they tell you right off the bat what you're in for - monster riffs and an Iggy-like intensity - flower power fans of soft psych heads need to look elsewhere for now. Next up is "Waiting for the Pope", a heavy funk psych MONSTER that recalls Funkadelic, Grodeck Whipperjenny and of course, Jimi's funkier moments. What it has to do with the pontiff is beyond me. "Generations" ups the ante even more, one of the heaviest slabs of pure electric noise you'll ever hear - not one, not two, but THREE fuzzed-out guitars duelling it out for supremacy, and they still get overmatched by the vocalists' wailing Ian Gillan Deep Purple '71 shrieks and moans. Over on Side 2, "Free Me" might be the closest any French rock band ever came to sounding like Lynyrd Skynyrd - and I mean the good, early Skynyrd - with a surprisingly funky boogie rhythm and twin guitar attack. It's great tuneful outlaw psych rock that, of course, predates Lynyrd by at least 2 years, but makes you wonder if Ronnie VanZant didn't spend some years in France during his teenage years. And while Variations couldn't possibly have stolen Ronnie's sound, they certainly did learn from Jimi, and it shows on "Completely Free", a fast, loud n' heavy funk psych MONSTER that sounds like one of those over-the-top Hendrix exploito tributes. Which is to say that it's a total immersion in the Hendrix sound - dual Jimi guitars battling over a funk jam riff - a psychedelic guitar lover's dream. Only the acoustic guitar conga instrumental title track offers respite from what one reviewer described as a "bludgeon-fest" of an album. If you like the unrelenting steamroller attack of early Led Zeppelin and Cream, funked up with a dose of Jimi Hendrix guitar and led by a vocalist who crosses Ian Gillan with Roger Daltry and makes descriptions like "histrionic" an understatement, then this is your album, my friend. If you're swept away by the gentle falsetto vocals of the young David Gates, then may I suggest something else. ORIGINAL SUPER RARE pressing on the French Pathe Marconi label. Cover's in VG++ shape, no ringwear and only some minor edge wear. Vinyl plays VG+ with crackle but, as you may have already guessed, you won't hear much surface noise while the songs are BLASTING through your cranial synapses. There just isn't any room for it. Winning bidder pays $3.00 media mail shipping in the US, $6 air mail to Canada, $12 air mail everywhere else. Paypal, Bidpay, cash, checks and money orders accepted. Please check out my other auctions for more pop, psych and garage obscurities, and SAVE ON SHIPPING!
