Buddha Art

It was probably David Bowie's record-company affiliation difficulties that kept the 1993 Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack to a British TV miniseries from being released in the U.S. until 1995, when it was slipped out in the wake of his new album, Outside. That's too bad, because The Buddha of Suburbia is an often engaging collection of songs and instrumental passages that recalls many previous Bowie albums, including such disparate efforts as The Man Who Sold the World, Aladdin Sane, and Low. It's not a major effort by any means, but in another context songs like "Strangers When We Meet" easily could become Bowie favorites.

Enter the world of mystic chill music. Close your eyes and dream away! Selected by DJ Michael Maretimo.

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, no strangers to weirdness on their prior 1967 album Part One, had still often stuck to relatively straightforward, concise, and pop-flavored songs on that LP. Here they stretched out into less structured, more avowedly psychedelic (and indeed experimental) territory, with mixed results. "Smell of Incense" (covered for a small hit by Southwest FOB) was sublime psych-pop. Yet "Suppose They Give a War and No One Comes" was just some fool - actually the band's chief investor, lyricist, and tambourine player, Bob Markley - grafting silly, self-consciously freaky recitation of a vintage 1936 Franklin Roosevelt speech onto an ominous fuzz guitar backup. Other cuts like "In the Arena" and "Overture - WCPAEB Part II" were free-form psychedelic creepiness without the strong content of, say, likely influence Frank Zappa…

Manifold Records present Buddha Gold Vol. 1. 30 excellent Chillout tracks and a continuous mix with mixing duties handled by DJ Maretimo.