The Plastic Cloud: The Plastic Cloud [LION PRODUCTIONS]

Why you'll love it

This Lion Productions reissue comes on 180g vinyl with a lyric insert and a replica of the original press notice. Original 1968 Allied pressings now sell for close to $1,000.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Lyric insert
• Replica press notice

About the album

Long before Toronto had a psych revival, four young musicians from Bay Ridges, Ontario were chasing The Byrds and the San Francisco sound. Brian Madill, Don Brewer, Mike Cadieux and Randy Umphrey started out as a folk-rock quartet, Brewer wrote every song, and Jack Boswell and Bill Bessey produced the album for Allied in late 1968. Brewer sang lead and Cadieux played lead guitar, with Madill on bass and Umphrey on drums.

The two sides split the band's personality. Side A leans toward folk rock and soft rock with "Epistle To Paradise," "Shadows Of Your Mind" and "Art's A Happy Man," then side B plugs in for the fuzz guitar and harmonies of "Bridge Under The Sky," "Face Behind The Sun" and "Civilization Machine," with odd sound effects in the spirit of The United States of America. Shindig! compared the band to Jefferson Airplane and the Velvet Underground.

Pacemaker reissued it in 2005, and Lion Productions has brought it back to vinyl. Both sides together run just under 20 minutes, which makes it the rare psychedelic album you can finish before the kettle boils twice.

Also at Kops: more The Plastic Cloud on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Lion Productions (cat# LION LP-103), a reissue of the 1968 album.