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The Millennium Pieces 1967 68 us brilliant baroque sunny psych 2013 Blu Spec part of eight discs box set Theres an old L.A. music biz tale that details a stunned Brian Wilson accidentally overhearing a recording session down the hall from his own. As the story goes, Wilson was hanging at Studio Three West with Pet Sounds collaborator Gary Usher in the spring of 1966 when he caught snippets of a recording conducted by 21-year-old wunderkind Curt Boettcher. Boettcher, fresh from producing The Associations first record, and with something of a rare talent for soaring, angelic vocal arrangements along the lines of Wilsons very own, took Wilson and Usher by complete surprise. In fact, legend has it that Boettchers ability to produce majestically layered instrumental and vocal pieces seemingly at the drop of a hat threw Wilson for a loop, and is rumored to have started the breakdown that would ultimately destroy his Smile project, and indeed his life ever after. Even if you dont buy the stor...

The End From Beginning To End 1964 70 uk brilliant sparkling bright psychedelia 2015 four discs box set One thing you learn, sleuthing for obscure psychedelic music from the sixties, is that for every �White Rabbit� there is a �Night Sounds Loud.� And a �Crystal Forms.� And God knows how many other brilliant songs grown out of the same protoplasm, but forgotten to history. There is just no shortage of mind-exploding songs that have long ago slipped away into The Nothing � standout songs from bands less consistent, or just less lucky than Jefferson Airplane. Even knowing that so much great overlooked music is out there, buried deep in record stacks and on YouTube, I was unprepared for �Introspection� by The End. Ironically, seeing that it was produced by Bill Wyman and engineered by Glyn Johns actually lowered my expectations. Let me explain. For an album with such a pedigree � produced by a Rolling Stone in 1968 � to have completely fallen between the cracks, it couldn�t actually be an...