And Pat Stevens, Who Hates Buttermilk, Is Going To...

The above words stuck in my head seventeen years ago, and have never left. I have no idea what TV programme, or film, or whatever they originally came from. I have no idea who Pat Stevens is, or what he is going to do (presumably) with the buttermilk. I heard them, spliced over a particularly queasy, yawning analogue synth towards the end of the second track of (excuse the capital letters) Possibly The Greatest Album Ever Fucking Made, Alien Soundtracks by Chrome.
There are heavier records. There are more avant-garde records. There are certainly more beautiful records, but, if wallowing in psychedelic muck is yr thing then this is the motherlode. Some swear by Cottonwoodhill by Brainticket, The Boredoms' VisionCreationNewsun once made my room turn into an enormous jewelled cavern hewn from the living rock filled with prismatic light, and far below me, hundreds of Boredoms pounding out the unstoppable rhythm, but Alien Soundtracks is the sound of YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS.
The first ten minutes of this record contain more ideas than most bands manage across an album. It opens with Chromosome Damage, a claterring metallic motorik driven space dragster which introduced the world to the corrosive, acid drenched guitar of Helios Creed whose phasedfuzzedfiltered'n'fucked riffs launch this song into orbit. Two minutes in, it suddenly starts to fade out mid verse. A couple of seconds of silence then a groaning analogue synth and guitar appear, odd, indecipherable voices beneath them. the guitar almost becomes a riff then it all abruptly cuts dead. Then the band slowly fade back in, a backwards bass/drums/guitar/synth groove like Heldon on crack growing in volume and intensity, then suddenly, in one of musics perfect moments, it flips and is suddenly careening forward, Damon Edge's synths and clanking insistent drums accelerating as Helios Creed cuts loose with a ascending, spiralling motherfucker of a solo as the track fades and threatens to tear itself apart. Fuck, it still gets me everytime I listen to it. The moment when the tape-reversed part is suddenly flying in the other direction is a total fucking masterpiece of splicing. It flips a switch in my brain, and I'm there, in the sleazy, depraved and wondrous place that is Chromeworld...

(tbc)