LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

Label: Mason Records

Abstract Truth were one of the most individual South African underground groups of the early 1970s, mixing psychedelic rock with folk, jazz, blues and Eastern colouring. Totum, their debut album, has a loose and exploratory feel, with flute, saxophone, sitar, percussion and guitar creating a sound that is closer to an open-ended late-night session than to conventional rock songwriting.

The album is built mostly from radically reworked outside material, including songs associated with Donovan, Bob Dylan, George Gershwin, Paul Simon and Mose Allison, but Abstract Truth reshape everything into their own strange acoustic, jazzy and psychedelic language. The closing Total Totum (Acid Raga) is the band’s own statement and gives the record its most hypnotic, Eastern-tinged moment. This Mason Records CD edition adds bonus tracks from the group’s second album, Silver Trees.

1. Jersey Thursday – 3:49
2. Coming Home Babe – 6:33
3. Oxford Town – 4:08
4. Fat Angel / Work Song – 10:17
5. Summertime – 5:38
6. Scarborough Fair – 3:43
7. Parchman Farm / Moaning – 2:56
8. Ain't Necessarily So / Take Five – 10:03
9. Total Totum (Acid Raga) – 5:18

10. Pollution – 3:11
11. Silver Trees – 8:13
12. In A Space – 3:52
13. Moving Away – 2:56
14. Two – 2:39
15. Blue Wednesday Speaks – 4:11
16. It's Alright With Me – 2:41