The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy

The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy – ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’

The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy was one of England’s purest and most beloved psychedelic band. – ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’ is one of the holy grails of acid/psychedelia due to all but one copy being destroyed in a mysterious shed fire. Prior to their ventures into psychedelia, The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy had been known as ‘Colin’s Optical Cushion’ and then ‘The Smoking Slippers’.

These groups played a rather ordinary brand of British pop and R+B. The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy debuted in 1967 with their fabulous ‘The Weird Stone of Zesty Kaboom’ LP. This disc featured featured some of the finest psychedelia England had produced up to that point.

More than half the album is fleshed out with lost classics; check out trippy tracks such as ‘Lord Kitchener’s Magnetic Testicles’, ‘Dr Snape: Tincture Woman’, ‘Quaff, Grope and Oneism’, ‘Spy Monkeys and Optical Jazz Poems’, ‘Pungent Monocle’, ‘Schlong Robots Vs. The Penny Farthings’, and the wonderful ‘Opium Erosion on the Clockwork Planet of Tick’.

Many of these tracks are on a par with the best of ‘The Satin Gown of John Merrick’.

The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy was making imaginative music featuring plenty of interesting bird noises, surreal drums and asymmetrical studio shreds. Much of the rest of ‘Weird Stone of Zesty Kaboom’ is superb too, but sales and critical recognition stiffed due to the transgender adventures of the lead singer Kyp Tannahill.

‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’, came out sometime later in 1969. While it may lack some of the key album cuts that made ‘Weird Stone’ so special,  ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’ is consistently strong and features influences as diverse as acid skiffle and banjo cosmic. Some of the highlights include, ‘The League of Moustraps’ a pastoral folk dazzle similar to ‘Pungent Monocle’, the queasy blissed out horror of ‘Count Orlok Vampire of East Mud Dock’ and the bipolar acid drenched title cut. Sand blast numbers ‘Mole Whisperer’ and ‘The Cosmic Cricket Pavilion of Rajasthan’ represent The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy’s new psyche approach while still retaining the group’s subtle edge – these cuts are both peacock feathers in the rump of the opium tsar.

Some songs’ lyrics like that on the tuneful cosmic country soul ‘Comanche, Carrot Juice and Me’ deal with the morality of Peter Pan, General Custer and Snapdragons. The music on ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’ is an immaculate amalgam of goosebump inducing traction and highly crafted atmospheric jam smiles. Uncomfortable to niche, this record is not to be missed!