The Red Krayola - The Parable of Arable Land
The Parable of Arable Land is an LP I would always skip past whenever I saw it in browser bins. During my brief flirtation with psychedelia I was always aware of the Red Krayola via their later post-punk strangeness, and I was after a far more innocent sound. And every other time I would see it: well, the title was just too much. It sounded way too hippy-drippy, full of agricultural motifs. It was bound to be a sort of proto-Jethro Tull.

I was colossally, wretchedly wrong.

There's a lot of strangeness on TPoAL, but it's nothing like my younger self would have expected. Some of it is lo-fi industrial 12-bar blues. Some of it is rather unsatisfactory free playing. And then there's the title track. It's a skeletal tape loop, overlaid with clattering percussion sounds and scraped strings. It's more Luciano Berio than it is Incredible String Band. Whereas much of The Red Krayola's early output sounds slightly confused, as if they were still in search of a satisfactory aesthetic, The Parable of Arable Land stands out as a brave attempt to compose a new music.

The Red Krayola - The Parable of Arable Land