Great Grape Ape

Inner Mystique seems to be the Chocolate Watchband album that fans and casual listeners know best, even though it was the one of their three records that was most disconnected from any active incarnation of the group. Slapped together in late 1967, in the wake of the virtual collapse of their lineup and rushed out in February of 1968, its original first side contained not a single note played or sung by the Watchband itself. Instead, engineer Richie Podolor assembled a group of studio musicians, playing a pair of languid psychedelic instrumentals - 'Voyage of the Trieste' and 'Inner Mystique' - in which the sitar flourishes and flute arabesques hung like jeweled ornaments, sandwiched around a new recording by singer Don Bennett…