Brian Jonestown Massacre: Thank God For Mental Illness

Why you'll love it

Anton Newcombe's own A Records issued this pressing on 180g vinyl with a download card, the album's first time on LP. It was the third of three full-length albums the band put out in 1996.

This edition

180g vinyl
Download card included

About the album

Most albums have a budget. This one had a receipt: $17.36, paid by Anton Newcombe himself. The Brian Jonestown Massacre recorded the whole thing in a single day, July 11, 1996, live in their San Francisco home studio, which the liner notes simply call "Our House," in what they described as tangible lo-fi custom stereo.

After the 60s psychedelia of Take It from the Man! and Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request earlier that year, Newcombe swung toward country blues and psychedelic folk, mostly acoustic and gloriously rough at the edges. "Spanish Bee" and "It Girl" set the loose, jangling mood, "Ballad of Jim Jones" and "Those Memories" sound like campfire songs from a strange campfire, and "Free and Easy, Take 2," "Too Crazy to Care" and "True Love" keep things warm and woozy. AllMusic called it the band's down-and-dirty country-blues outing.

Bomp! put it out that October, and critics have since counted it among the band's best. Anyone who's ever been handed a quote for a studio might like to frame the budget; we've pinned it up behind the counter for morale.

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