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Editor's Note: This blog was contributed by my friend Shaun Rogan, who has been the source of numerous music discussions - and arguments! - over the years. Each installment of his blog will highlight a different album that ought be regarded as a classic, but was forgotten instead. Until now.

The task of this series, authored by myself and kindly given cyberspace by the good folks at Zoom In, is to provide a platform for the archaeology of underground music. Here your intrepid traveller will trawl through the dark recesses of the history of popular music to uncover lost gems and provide you with a low down on the vast reservoir of zero hit wonders that the diligence of labour of love reissue labels have admirably allowed you the listener access to without needing a bank balance the size of Saudi Arabia.

Artist: C.A. Quintet
Title : Trip Thru Hell
Original Release: 1968 (Candy Floss Records)
Reissued on vinyl and cd by Sundazed Music 1998

We begin with the C.A. Quintet's sole long player, released in 1969.  Trip Thru Hell is something of a lost masterpiece. It has been described by some as a soundtrack to the occupation of "uncomfortable mental spaces," and by others as a "phantasmagoria of weird sounds." All I know is that it's one of the great recordings of the first psychedelic era. Read on…

The C.A. Quintet started like most bands as a frat-style combo influenced by the British invasion of the mid-1960's complete with matching suits as of the time. They hailed from Minneapolis (a rich breeding ground for proto-psych garage madness) and had recorded a handful of singles for the tiny local Falcon record label. These 45's were pretty standard fare - soul/r'n'b hybrids with a jaunty back beat and fairly forgettable musical arrangements (these track are included as part of the 'extras' on the Sundazed reissue on both formats). The only indication of future weirdness was the employment of a trumpet in an almost lead/mariachi style epitomised on the teen-angst tune "Blow To My Soul."

Then in 1967 something happened to the band's creative force and lynchpin Ken Erwin, something that he himself struggles to convey in the rare interviews he has granted over the years. I would compare it to the sense of foreboding that enveloped Love leader, Arthur Lee and compelled him to write his doom laden baroque masterpiece Forever Changes.

Basically Ken got bummed out. And it seeped into his compositions like a malignant musical cancer. The end product of this would be their sole long playing record, the masterpiece known as Trip Thru Hell. 

 

The 'Trip' is basically a loose concept piece bookended by the title track that is cut into parts 1 and 2 (a trick that would be employed years later by UK space rock originators Pink Floyd on their zillion selling album, Wish You Were Here). 

The opening half of the title track seeps out of the speakers driven by a simple, ominous bass line which repeats a simple figure. It's joined by circling guitars and a repeated almost Gregorian chant wordless vocal releasing a cinematic sweep of sound across parched and treeless vistas. This is our entrance into the world of the C.A. Quintet… Then the pace suddenly quickens with stabbed organ notes and bass before the first excursion of that mariachi style trumpet playing that marked "Blow to my Soul." Think Ennio Morricone on acid. Then things get seriously disturbing as shards of guitar feedback come shattering into the mix followed by an insane phased drum section that drags you helplessly screaming into the void. Then just as you begin to contemplate leaving your mind to escape the madness, the drums fade and the opening riff reappears momentarily before floating off into the ether - you have been in the Trip for 11 minutes, and your perceptions have been altered permanently.

"Colorado Mourning" follows in the slipstream, dousing you down in cooler vibes - all cascading keyboards and muted lead trumpets. You are now in a place where they "shine the light in my eyes, make me feel hypnotised..." The sense of foreboding is never far away and as the following track begins to emerge with its fast heartbeat bass and squalls of keyboard and muttering guitars, you are once again staring into the abyss. "Cold Spider" has rightly attained a status amongst aficionados of the genre as one of the scariest, bleakest and insanest rave-ups ever committed to vinyl. Somewhere underneath its hallucinatory stream of consciousness lyrics and unhinged and terrifying screams is the key to the whole shebang. This is outsider music that takes the flowers from San Francisco and stomps them into the dirt. It would probably scare Iggy Pop and Lou Reed if they listened to it alone. As it reaches its unnerving, whirling finale it becomes a kaleidoscope. Of shades of black. The song ends the first side of the original record trembling in the wake of its own psychosis. We are at the half way stage and things are looking pretty darn bleak for humanity. 

Thankfully, side 2 opens with a real rip-roar of psyche-pop, "Underground Music". This is The Beach Boys compared to what has gone before - all tight arrangement, driving beat and bold stabs of brass. "The music for the mind," it reassures us as if we are about to reach a horizon over which the sun will shine and Jerry Garcia will be waiting for us with a blast of American Beauty and a big fat spliff…

Some hope. As our euphoria at celebrating underground music beings to ebb, we find ourselves taking a left turn into a musical twilight zone. A place of smoky, ominous farfisa sounds, a place where "nothing ever grows," a place in Ken Erwin's imagination called "Sleepy Hollow Lane." The track has a dreamlike quality and drifts off into a 'take 5' rhythm down into the canyons of your mind. A quick fade in/out of the main title track riff, and then we are picked up again on a breeze of morse code guitar, spaghetti western trumpets and raga-riffing for the blast that is "Smooth as Silk." This could easily have found its way onto the soundtrack of The Monkees legendary stoner movie, Head. It shimmers and slides across your synapses like a whirling dervish spinning on a magic carpet made of peyote buds. Impressive. We are flying again and we don't ever wanna come down…

Too bad beacuse before we know it, a drum is beating out a military tattoo and a brace of trumpeters are sounding reveille for battle. "Trip Thru Hell part 2" is upon us. And this time it's personal. All bets are off for the closing track which reprises the beautiful and melancholic main theme, imparting a farewell message telling us that:

"The angels came and played a thousand years, but all the glory there was washed by tears.." 

Thanks. We are now crossing the river Styx. You accepted the challenge, and once on the track you can't turn back. The guy heading down the staircase in front of you is indeed Dante. This is a hop, skip, and a jump through your entirely useless life (in the key of 'G'). 

On we proceed on our terrible, scarring journey. Sounds smash into each other as splinters of cocktail jazz (!), phased guitars, backwards effects, bloodcurdling screams, and musique concrete keyboards duke it out with reckless abandon ripping what is left of your mind into sub-atomic pieces. The ante is the upped with an apocalyptic explosion and doomy church bells to absolute breaking point and then… silence.

You have died, and I am afraid to say you have not been reborn my sweet flowers, but you have died and blackness is your only friend. Nothing can save you, don't ask for Mommy, you made the pact when you slid the record on the deck. Now you must face your own deliverance. The trip is over but the reverberations will stay with you forever.

Upon the completion of this record, the C.A. Quintet never entered a studio again. Despite craving more I can't blame them. What would be the point when you have made one of the most startling artistic statements of your generation? 

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Greg Shaw, founder of Bomp Records, Burbank, California.

Shaun has been an avid collector of rare and esoteric sounds for over 25 years. In music terms, he cut his teeth with pioneering industrial noise terrorists God in the late 1980's sharing stages with the likes of Henry Rollins, Butthole Surfers and My Bloody Valentine. He currently slings a guitar with South London punk veterans The Phobics and has his own garage-psyche ensemble, The Call Ons.