Atomic Forest – Obsession
Now-Again
Perhaps wisely changing their name from 100 Ton Chicken, the slightly less preposterously titled Atomic Forest — so the story goes — went on to record India’s only psych rock album, Obsession 77. Misleadingly, this isn’t a straight reissue but an anthology of 17 tracks and extremely interesting history of the band.
It should be said from the beginning that this is far from a uniformly great record. The insipid, working man’s club medley of Beatles songs and an aggravating muzak cover of ‘Windmills Of Your Mind’ with a crappy, synthesised theremin solo in particular deserve to be put in a canon and fired directly into the lava-filled caldera of an active volcano. Also, the actual sound quality can be slightly nasty at times, too trebly and thin — often a complaint with rare psych. But all this said, when it’s good, it’s superb. I could name probably 100 current rock bands who would love to be able to reproduce Neel Chattopadhyaya’s warm, fuzzed-up guitar sound. The title track is the sort of thing that will make fans of Chicago Transit Authority, the deep MOOG funk of William Onyeabor and the whacked-out psychedelic funk of Harlem Underground shoot their bolts in excitement and is literally worth the cover price on its own.
As Stool Pigeon office intern Amanda remarked on hearing the album: it’s really common to hear the influence of Indian music on Western psychedelic rock from The Beatles outwards and beyond, so it’s interesting to hear the influence flowing in the other direction. They are ostensibly a European sounding group, but occasionally, on bangers like ‘Butterfly’, everything is held in place by frenetic blasts on the table. Even this track, though, is given pan-global velocity by tweaking Moog synths and New Orleans liquid bass. In parts — outstanding. John Doran
