The Psychedelic Adventures of Mooch
in the Country of the Yak
2CD set
Mooch reissue double header number 5
The Psychedelic Adventures of Mooch in the Country of the Yak is Steve at
perhaps his most whimsical. The album was recorded just before Starhenge,
and utilised many of the ethnic musical instruments that Steve had by then
collected. The album built on all the techniques of earlier albums - the ethnic
exploration and radio voices of The Crypt of Artificial Intelligences, the live
mixdown delay of Postvorta, the sonic layering of 3001 and Planetfall - but
instead of reaching out into space it explored a curious landscape half in Tibet,
half in Steve’s imagination. Tracks like Along the Trail of Stones, Death Cap
Machine and Sparkling Wake featured a synthesizer borrowed from Cal Lewin,
who Steve had recently met, after Cal saw an article about Steve in the local
paper. This 1994 meeting led to the classic mark III line-up, and some great
albums... Happy days indeed. Steve does not now recall any details of the
album concept, except that it involved a ritual journey into a semi-imaginary
Tibet. Alas the only surviving cassette of the album holds no clues in its
hastily written track titles, so listeners to these eleven pieces of mid-’nineties
whimsydelica (as the genre should surely be known) will just have to fill in
the gaps themselves...
