Magic Carpet: A Tasty Trip

For the listener who craves the deep, warm, dark green and forest brown, fog-drenched Indian influenced psychedelia that chartered its way out of San Francisco in the late sixties/early seventies, this reissue of the Magic Carpet’s debut record (on Magic Carpet Records) will ring a true chord. The band hailed from the UK…no where near the flower children of the Haight, but their brand of “Eastern Psych Folk” is close kin to After Bathing At Baxter’s era Jefferson Airplane and calls to order the Bay Area folk revival scene going on today: in a time of Devendra Banhart’s elfin freakiness, Joanna Newsom’s evil-angel resurrections, and the resurgence of interest in Vashti Bunyan, the Magic Carpet’s 1972 lost classic could not sound fresher. Alisha Sufit is a charmed chanteuse whose dark voice is crystal clear and mesmerizing; Clem Alford’s sitar playing is top notch and truly psychedelic. The songs come as old friends (favorite: “Father Time”) and hang in the air as mysteries leading to the sweet 20+ minute instrumental raga not found on the original issue of the record. Top notch rainy day fun, a perfect bong stuffer for the holidays.
(this post originally appeared on The Aquarius Records List)