Beat of the Earth - self-titled CD (Radioactive)

Semi-legendary improvisational 1967 psychedelic disc that fuses oriental drones with Velvetty feedback, amusing asides about beatniks and a declamatory vocal style that's somewhere between their Sunset Strip contemporaries the Doors and West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and any given girl-hatin' teen garage combo. That this intense side-long weirdness (produced as a college class assignment!) came out of square Orange County makes the record even more intriguing. While at the time leaving scant impression beyond the hitchhikers who were its main mode of distribution, a nineties remaster stirred up deserved interest in BOTE, reclusive band leader Phil Pearlman, and his projects Phil & the Flakes (1964) and Relatively Clean Rivers (1976). -Kim Cooper