Ravi Shankar – Transmigration Macabre

I found this one at Grown-So-Ugly, but I wanted the original album cover, and when I went hunting, I found it at this great, and humourous blog called CRUD CRUD. Here’s what Scott “five dimensional man” Soriano had to say about Transmigration Macabre:

Composed in 1967 for a Brit art film called Viola, Transmigration Macabre is not your average Ravi Shankar album. Overtly psychedelic, sometimes closer to Coltrane’s mystical free jazz than the Indian classical music Shankar is famous for, Transmigration… is one of those records that gets revealed to you. In the olden days, that revelation would happen in the used record store. Young Timmy would come to the counter with a copy of Black Sabbath’s Masters of Reality and one of Ravi Shankar’s albums on World Pacific or his East/West record with violinist Yehudi Menuhin. The head behind the counter would shake his head, put aside the Shankar records, reach behind the counter and pull out a copy of Transmigration Macabre. “Here, kid. This is the one you want,” he’d say ringing Young Timmy and sending him out the door, not giving him time to object. Young Timmy would go home, smoke a joint on the side of the house, go into his bedroom, listen to Sabbath and then put on the Shankar album AND BLOW HIS FUCKING MIND! That is the way it used to happen. Not anymore. Now we check out blogs or podcasts and do the soulseek thing. We find the dudes with the rapidshare blogs and download psychedelic collections that once took decades to obtain. No sweat, no blood, no stinky record geek loser standing behind the counter playing underground music pusher, sending you away with the idea that not only does every musician have a freaky side, but many of us are secret freaks. The record store guy knew that you were a freak and you now know he is a freak. You speak a secret language. Not a hip language or a lingo that makes you better than anyone else. Nah, just one that acknowledges that you don’t fit in. Nowadays, people wear their freakiness or at least they wear some kind of store bought freakiness. Yeah, sure it is great that people can look however they want to look. It is groovy that every flavor is out there to be tasted. But it seems to me something has been lost in this effortless. point/click/download world. Like digital recordings can’t capture room ambiance the way analog can; like look at words on a screen doesn’t measure up to kicking back and reading a book; like watching two people fuck on yummygirlfuck.com, with your pants around your ankles doesn’t quite compare to lying next to the one you love or even kinda like; this instant aural gratification, hell, let me just say that I hope that as far as this blog goes, it inspires you to do something more than play passive consumer of yet another mp3, even if that is only going out and getting your fingers dirty, digging for your own crud.