The Human Expression: Love At A Psychedelic Velocity (1966 - 1967) 2013

 

The Human Expression was an American garage and psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles that

released three well-regarded singles, and made additional demo recordings between 1966 and 1967. The band formed in 1966, with the members coming from Westminster, California, and Tustin, California (both in Orange County). The Human Expression came together in 1966 taking their name at the suggestion of band member Jim Quarels. He was joined by Jim Foster and the duo would compose and bring the rest of the lineup together.
                   

JIM QUARLES

Jim Quarles came up with the name "because it had a mystical and otherworldly ring", and the father of

one of the band members (Jim Foster) served as their manager. The two then began writing songs for the new band: "I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I just wrote the songs with Jim Foster. I didn't have any prior experience." The band would start performing in local venues and school dances to create a more cohesive unit.
                        

MARTIN ESHLEMAN

The Human Expression might've been a lot more than an obscure but beloved psychedelic band from

Los Angeles. The band was formed in 1966 by Jim Quarles (lead vocals), Jim Foster (rhythm guitar), Martin Eshleman (lead guitar), Tom Hamilton (bass), and Armand Poulin (drums), with Quarles providing the name and Foster's father as their manager. They cut a demo single ("Everynight" b/w "Readin' Your Will," which got them a recording contract with Los Angeles-based Accent Records. An official single of "Everynight" b/w "Love at Psychedelic Velocity" was issued soon after.
                   

JIM FOSTER

"Love at Psychedelic Velocity" is featured on the last of the 10 LPs issued by BFD Records in the Pebbles series as well as on Vol. 7 of the Garage Beat '66 CD series, put out by Sundazed Records.[7] It

has an unusual structure in that, in two places, the pace of the song slows down dramatically – sounding like the Vogues, according to the liner notes for Pebbles, Volume 10 – and then speeds to a breakneck pace immediately afterward. Despite the song's name, "Love at Psychedelic Velocity" is more in the style of a garage rock song than a psychedelic rock song.
                

TOM HAMILTON

The Human Expression's history ended, though Quarles continued writing songs and pursued some solo

recording, and later establish his own studio. In 1994, Collectables Records released a 14-song CD (Love at Psychedelic Velocity) of the complete Human Expression demos and released singles, rounded out with a quartet of Quarles solo sides.
                 

ARMAND POULIN

LINE - UP

               

 

Armand Poulin - Drums
Jim Foster - Rhythm Guitar
Jim Quarles - lead singer, song writer
Martin Eshelman - Lead Guitar
Tom Hamilton - Bass
Mike verlingieri - ?

           

THE HUMAN EXPRESSION - LOVE AT A PSYCHEDELIC VELOCITY (1965 - 1967) 2013

                    

Judging from what's here, the Human Expression were certainly better than the average band on the

California rock scene at the time; Quarles and guitarist Jim Foster were imaginative songwriters with a clever, slightly bent approach, and Foster's guitar style was an interesting mixture of traditional folk-rock jangle, tough fuzzy leads, and a willingness to play with reverb tanks and pickup switches to come up with unusual sounds.
       

MARTIN ESHLEMAN & TOM HAMILTON

But Love at Psychedelic Velocity also tries to make an album out of a band that didn't have an album's

worth of recordings; "Calm Me Down" is a great tune, but not so great that this album needs three versions of it, and the demo of "Every Night" doesn't reveal much except that the group's early recordings were done in a really crummy-sounding studio. And while Quarles' pre-Human Expression tapes are interesting, they also capture a teenage kid working out ideas that he'd handle with greater skill later on.
                       

Human Expression – Love At A Psychedelic Velocity 1965-1967
Label:Moi J'Connais Records – MJCR020, Mississippi/Change Records – MRP-043
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation + Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single
Country: Switzerland
Released: 2013
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock, Garage Rock
        
SIDE A.

                  

 
A1. Readin' Your Will
A2. Every Night
A3. Optical Sound
A4. Calm Me Down
A5. Sweet Child Of Nothingness
A6. I Don't Need Nobody
A7. Outside Of It All

SIDE B.

           

B1. Love At A Psychedelic Velocity
B2. Optical Sound (Alternate Version)
B3.Calm Me Down (Alternate Version)
B4. Every Night (Alternate Version)
B5. Jim Quarles: Room Of Shadows (Complete Version)
B6. Jim Quarles: I Told Her
B7. Jim Quarles: Return Nevermore
B8. Jim Quarles: Judgement Of Rejection

THE HUMAN EXPRESSION -  FOLLOWING ME / WHO IS BURNING VINYL 7" 45 RPM SINGLE

                 

Previously unreleased songs by Jim QuarIes, vocalist/guitarist for Human Expression. It’s unclear as to whether the rest of The Human Expression musicians play on this recording or when it was actually recorded.

MARTIN ESHLEMAN

The labels on the 45 are reversed: the A-side label lists “Following Me” as the song but the music is actually the recording of ”Who Is Burning”, and the label on B-side lists “Who Is Burning” as the song and it’s actually “Following Me”. Issued to be sold with The Human Expression - Love At A Psychedelic Velocity and The Human Expression - Love At A Psychedelic Velocity LPs issued by Moi J'Connais Records and Mississippi/Change Records in 2013.
         

 

The Human Expression – Following Me / Who Is Burning
Label: Mississippi/Change Records – MRP-043/MJCR-020
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single
Country: US
Released: 2013
Genre: Rock
Style: Garage Rock, Psychedelic Rock

SIDE A.
                 

A.Following Me

SIDE B.

              

B.Who Is Burning

Flac Size: 338 MB

Morgan Delt: Morgan Delt 2014 + Phase Zero 2016

 

Los Angeles-based neo-psych sorcerer Morgan Delt first appeared in early 2013 with a limited-edition

demo-length cassette release titled Psychic Death Hole. The six songs on this bite-sized album brought to light all the demonic psychedelic force of early Pink Floyd and the druggy jangle of any number of '60s acid-tripping jangle rock bands meeting with the more jagged edges of Thee Oh Sees' most brutal home-recorded rock tracks.
              

The limited 7" Barbarian Kings b/w Black Tuna Gang followed the cassette release, and in early 2014,

Delt released a self-titled album for Trouble in Mind. He then signed with Sub Pop and retreated to his home studio to begin work on album number two. Recorded entirely by Delt himself, then mastered by the very busy J.J. Golden, the even more trippy, more psyched-up Phase Zero was released in August of 2016.
                    

The invocation of classic west coast psychedelia that permeates Morgan Delt’s Sub Pop debut LP feels

like a continuous sunrise, never concealing its influences yet perfectly putting its songs through a gauzy lens that blurs and obscures.
                         

Is such a thing even possible after witnessing umpteen reverb-jockeys creating their own take on the

genre?
Can anything truly different be done in the realm of being both original and reverent, wearing favorite records and artists’ moves on one’s sleeve? Definitely the case with our man here.
                     

After releasing a 6-song cassette in 2013 followed by a full length for the Trouble In Mind label, the

California native now fine-tunes his sound world outwardly rather than honing in on a specific trajectory, allowing all of said influences to coexist together in a unique yet undoubtedly Californian vision.
                        

MORGAN DELT - MORGAN DELT 2014

                     

By all accounts, Morgan Delt is a normal enough guy, living in Los Angeles probably with a cat and the same need to pay the bills as the rest of us. Still, if one were to judge by the sound of his debut self-

titled album released in 2014 by the fine folks at Trouble in Mind, it might seem like Mr. Delt was flash-frozen in 1967 while in the process of making his own version of "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "My White Bicycle," then only recently thawed out. It has all the trippy elegance of the former and all the phased hookiness of the latter, while adding a bedroom-crafted intimacy that is the only aspect of the record that dates it as a modern production.
                  

While the album sounds like a note-perfect take on psych pop from start to finish that was crafted by

someone who owns at least a wall full of Nuggets, Pebbles, and Rubble compilations, it also benefits from Delt's knack for catchy songwriting.
             

A lot of people have done the same kind of excavation and restoration work he has, but few have done

it as memorably. Almost no one has done it with songs as good as these. Tracks like the undulating "Mr. Carbon Copy," the rampaging "Chakra Sharks," and the sunny with a chance of weirdness "Obstacle Eyes" sound amazing with their period finery, but would be just as nice stripped down and done in a more sedate fashion.
                   

Best of them all are the songs that could be slotted in on a late-'60s psych comp and not only fit in, but

be highlights. Songs like the seriously melted with a giant chorus "Barbarian Kings" and the brilliantly arranged "Make My Grey Brain Green" would make the Pretty Things' brains green with envy and would make almost any fan of this kind of music incredibly happy.
               

Delt may be a normal guy; he may have traveled through time with a stop to steal Faine Jade's (look

him up!) soul. Regardless of how he came to make Morgan Delt, it was all worth it because this is timeless psychedelic music of the highest quality imaginable.
               

Morgan Delt – Morgan Delt
Label: Trouble In Mind – TIM064
Format: CD, Album
Country: US
Released: 2014
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock

TRAXS

             

01. Make My Grey Brain Green    2:51
02. Barbarian Kings    3:52
03. Beneath The Black And Purple    3:10
04. Mr. Carbon Copy    2:53
05. Obstacle Eyes    3:28
06. Little Zombies    3:14
07. Chakra Sharks    1:38
08. Sad Sad Trip    3:57
09. Backwards Bird Inc.    3:39
10. Tropicana    2:09
11. Main Title Sequence    2:02

BONUS TRACK (From the Psychic Death Hole EP 2012)

            

12. Gatactic Grids   7:13

Flac Size: 286 MB

MORGAN DELT - PHASE ZERO 2016

                  

The resulting 10-song collection, performed entirely by Delt, recorded in his Topanga Canyon studio

and then mastered by JJ Golden, is a home-fi construction with a more subtle, braintickling character than its predecessor, and somewhat reflects a realist take on the flower power fantasy of 1967.
            

Doused in echo and haze, slow chords lap in like Pacific waves, flanked by gentle whispers of multi-

tracked, cooing vox, phased guitars and fuzz that calmly surrounds the listener’s head less than it jabs at the cortex. Opener “I Don’t Wanna See What’s Happening Outside” is almost the sharpest-sounding number on the record with jittery, choogling guitar that makes its dry solo run upfront, appearing mid-song out of a fog.

                  

The sense of home experimentation amidst the lo-fidelity and oozy layers of vocals almost brings to

mind Christine McVie’s lush pacification of Lindsey Buckingham’s deliberate New Wave pot-stirring on Tusk, but unlike that record, Delt’s futurism fog can’t help but nod to Sunset acid of days of yore.
         

One doesn’t need to listen close to extract healthy doses of Notorious Byrd Brothers, Curt Boettcher,

Terry Riley, and Buffalo Springfield in the stew with a solid line of fluttery electronics that fizzle in and out of the floaty arrangements. “Sun Powers” hits the deck like a lift-off from a ‘70s UK sci-fi TV show, sunny tremolo zipping in circles around warm Zombies-like vocals coming out of some kinda cave, lovely melodies and words overriding any turbulence or background FX.
                 

It takes a creative mind to hone in on a song like “Escape Capsule” without wearing out well-trodden

use of tablas and electric drones. More often than not it all traditionally can fall into Beatles or Spacemen 3 terrain, but on this song Delt can transport what would normally be a dark-n-druggy blanket into a much more optimistic and friendly listening experience.
               

Despite his voice being channelled through hallucinatory effects, it’s warm and inviting, projecting a

sense of hope (particularly in “Some Sunsick Day,” which evokes the hopeful “We’ll Meet Again” as the world explodes at the end of Dr. Strangelove, later covered by the Byrds). It’s more or less just an invite to watch the sun rise too.
                

Morgan Delt – Phase Zero
Label: Sub Pop – SP 1135
Format: CD, Album, Stereo
Country: US
Released: Aug 26, 2016
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock

TRAXS

                

01. I Don't Wanna See What's Happening Outside    4:13
02. The System Of 1000 Lies    2:48
03. Another Person    3:00
04. Sun Powers    3:46
05. The Age Of The Birdman    3:31
06. Mssr. Monster    3:53
07. A Gun Appears    3:11
08. The Lowest of the Low    4:31
09. Escape Capsule    5:16
10. Some Sunsick Day    5:11

Flac Size: 265 MB