The Mystic Minds AKA The Mysterious Minds - Mind Over Matter mp3 album

Wow..that 'Fungus among us' track is just.... damn. These vets really brought the PTSD psych funky fungus.

This the best offbeat small indie psych/soul record I ever found. It's wacked out primal funky psychedelic soul band from just outside San Francisco, this record is extremely rare. A 2005 Ebay auction sold at $198 and claimed only 3 copies exist. Make that 4 counting mine, and probably a few more. This also saw a limited, numbered 300 copy (Swedish?) repress in recent around 2002, probably unofficial. The highlight of this is the bizarre Brass Orchestra Cabinet invented by one of the members and shown on the back cover. It looks like about 21 trumpets and 11 pipes grafted on some kind of organ, basically a pipe organ horn section. The band is a grinning mix of cultures with a hispanic guy in pullover poncho and medallion, a black guy with an afro, and a geeky white guy in some proto-hoodie. The horns sound a little off key to me, and not very dynamic, probably because there's no apparent velocity sensitivity, all the notes are at the same volume, at times sounding like a sick Farfisa organ to me. There may actually be some Farfisa in there too, and there's a cheesy electric piano at times with something that hints at those obligatory simple piano chords in a lot of housey 90's stuff. That's part of what makes this so unique. And these guys find a groove and work it even if they can't really figure out anywhere new to go with it once they get there. The groovy intro rap about his special horn box is just the icing on the cake. This has a minimalist outsider art feel to it and a trippy cover that's more mid to late 60s than mid 70s. The lyrics and titles and cover (Fungus Among Us) all suggest some psychedelic influences but other songs (Clean Up Your Act) and the manifesto on the back saying "One must rid himself of the bad habit of cheating the mind with drugs and accepting people rejection." The manifesto is great, all about mind, self control, anti-commercialism, finding direction and stability and a focus on the "direction of one's self" ..."one must believe, indulge, and concentrate", ridding yourself of bad habits. "One must to everything possible to survive life." "Each one of us must grasp and hold control, because the weaker ones will become extinct." Darwin is going to get you baby, watch your ass! Never give up. Clearly these guys have struggled and pulled themselves out of that to persevere and groove on that constructive vibe thang. It's been almost a decade since the hippie summer of love 30 miles north in San Francisco that gave way to speed and junkies and these dudes are coming to grips with embracing reality and venting their concerns about the capitalist machine. "The New Worlds Reality brings about a state of mass confusion. People have been under the control of the command for so long that they will lose themselves when the business world sends them home with nothing to do with their time." I admire the sprit of it and their hopes to inspire as the 60's love gave way to the 70's "all about me" generation. The manifesto ends with this sobering note: "If excess time isn't turned into constructive time, the human mind will unleash the competitive forces of nature." These guys could write speeches for Sarah Palin or have a cult following on a blog if they were still pushing the message today. I'd love to know where these guys now and I hope they got a cut from the pricey limited DJ rarities focused repress.Forced Exposure or Downtown Music noted in a review that band was Korean War Veterans but they seem more Vietnam era if there's anything to that, they don't look old enough in the pics in mid 70s to have served in the military in the 1950's, and the whole thing has a sort of post-hippie rant meets mid 60's music. These probably guys tripped their balls off, chased the dragon to hell and back and are trying hard to just survive and share the love. And they manage to do it in a quirky but sincere way that makes this near and dear to my heart, even if I poke a little fun at it, it's a beautiful record in concept, content and packaging. It appears to be a band released record, probably in less than a few hundred copies. Not sure how the limited reissue is packaged of if that could be passed off as the original but even that is just about as scarce as the original record.

my_past_is_yours These guys could write speeches for Sarah Palin damn, thats where you lost me. The story was lovely. why did you have to ruin it?