The Deep – Psychedelic Moods (Lion Production reissue, 2015)

The reflection in the mirror began shifting, then it begins melting, morphing in the half-light of candles, and a head flowing with chemical memories was stumbling to recognize the image before me … it was me, but this is me, but the me in the mirror is me from the summer of 1966.  Yet I’m here and I’m there.  I can taste the warm summer night, and the smell of my analog tube stereo is swirling around me, drawing me back in, back into a room filled with the blue smoke of Afghani Finger Hash, a room washed with prismatic light, and fabric draped lampshades.  How weird … but I want to stay here, unfolding, lost forever in this magic moment.  But then reality flows back in, the room quivers as I rub my eyes with the heels of my palms, stepping back and sinking into the warmth of my bed as the ceiling spins, and I remember it all so clearly.

Ahhhhh, those heady summer nights when the world was just right, and my body truly was a wonderland.  Of course the songs are silly, they’re the stuff of memories, things that never even happened, even when they were supposed to be happening.  Psychedelic Moods is a journey into music that filtered through my stereo late into the night, brought to me on the wings of some disembodied DJ’s voice, bestowing a reality that didn’t exist, but certainly sparked adventurous visions of what was happening in San Francisco, New York, London, and Paris, and there I sat, stoned in my little room, making up stories of things beyond my imagination … things just outside of my window.

This entire record is one LSD induced musical adventure.  It actually captures the fuzzy off-balanced mind-bending experience, one where the tips of your fingers hold secrets, and everything is a delight.  I’m not sure that anyone who wasn’t there then will be able to appreciate this bit of theater … I do know that it will go right over the heads of anyone who’s not taken Acid or Magic Mushrooms … but then, even if one has, it’s not uncommon for things to sail right over their heads as well.

Wake up and find me, lost in memories of liquid nights, and crystal morning dreams.  This is it, this is the peak, the best part of the trip, and I’m floating untethered in some paralleled universe that’s meshing with mine.  I know I’ll never be the same … and forty-five years later, I can honestly say, “I’ve touched the sky.”

– Jenell Kesler

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