Kaleidoscope (uk)
Faintly Blowing
Limited repress. Originally issued in 1969, comes in replica gatefold sleeve. For their second album, Kaleidoscope delivered something an awful lot like their debut, a body of pleasant, trippy, spacy raga-rock, with the main difference that they pushed the wattage a little harder on their instruments -- they'd also been performing pretty extensively by the time of their second long-player, and a lot of the music here was material that they'd worked out on-stage in very solid versions. The result is a record just as pretty as their debut but a little punchier and more exciting within each song than their first album. The title track is also one of the more beautiful psychedelic effects pieces of its period, while 'A Story From Tom Bitz' is crunchy folk-rock, '(Love Song) For Annie' represents a more lyrical brand of druggy folk-rock, and 'If You So Wish' shifts over to Moody Blues-style ballad territory circa late 1968 and early 1969.