GROUP 1850-LIVE, LP, 1974 (RECORDED: 1969), NETHERLANDS

Though I tend to think of their 1967 debut release "Agemo's Trip To Mother Earth" as being this Dutch psych unit's piece de resistance (and one of the finest psych albums of the whole era, for my money), this live album from two years hence is a thoroughly heady experience in it's own right. Recorded in the immediate wake of their follow-up missive "Paradise Now" and featuring substantially altered versions of two of the tracks that appeared therein, "Live" roils with a wild and infectious kinetic energy. If Agemo's Trip To Mother Earth was informed by Piper-era Floyd, the following few years found them reformatting their palette toward the more beefy and overtly rockist; both "Paradise Now" and "Live" at times flying a similar flag to that wielded by Guru Guru in their heyday, with brief roundelays into almost Santana-ish territory at times. That said, the glorious 15+ minute "Veradering" exits the aforesaid continuum entirely, free floating into the kosmiche ether on a tide of shuddering electronic waves and abstract guitar energy in a way that precedes and virtually surpasses much krautrock.

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