{"id":9389,"date":"2011-05-18T02:25:49","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T01:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=9389"},"modified":"2011-11-11T19:26:54","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T19:26:54","slug":"signals-from-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2011\/05\/18\/signals-from-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Signals from Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"signal.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Raymond Taylor\u2019s composition, A Signal from Mars (1901).<\/em><\/p>\n

This sheet music cover turned up recently as one of the pieces of science fiction-related graphics which will be on display at the British Library’s Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it<\/em><\/a> exhibition when it opens on Thursday. I don’t know what the music sounds like but the design is very familiar from a reworked version used for the cover of A Beacon from Mars<\/em>, the second album by psychedelic band Kaleidoscope. It was always obvious that this cover had been copied from somewhere but I hadn’t seen the original until now. On the reissue CD there are no design credits so I’ve no idea who drew the cover; given its rather crude felt-tipped appearance that may be just as well. It’s a nice idea but poorly rendered.<\/p>\n

\"beacon.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Beacon from Mars (1968) by Kaleidoscope.<\/em><\/p>\n

There are two Kaleidoscopes among the psychedelic groups of the late 60s so it should be emphasised that it’s the American one we’re dealing with here. The UK group<\/a> were very good, especially on their second album, Faintly Blowing<\/em><\/a> (1969), but the US band are in a different league altogether. I’d rate them as highly as any other group you care to name from the period 1967\u201369, including The Beatles. A troupe of formidable multi-instrumentalists, they started out as the Baghdad Blues Band (the name change was prompted by their manager), and played a unique blend of psych-rock, blues, bluegrass, English folk and Middle Eastern instrumentals. Jimmy Page called them his favourite band of all time, and it’s notable that Led Zeppelin adopted a similarly eclectic formula shortly after. The last of Kaleidoscope’s trio of 60s albums is aptly titled Incredible<\/em><\/a>; the standout piece on that opus is Seven-Ate Sweet<\/em> which can be heard in its full 11-minute glory here<\/a>. For more about the band, this fan site<\/a> is the place to go.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The album covers archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raymond Taylor\u2019s composition, A Signal from Mars (1901). This sheet music cover turned up recently as one of the pieces of science fiction-related graphics which will be on display at the British Library’s Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it exhibition when it opens on Thursday. I don’t know what … Continue reading “Signals from Mars”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,3,17,20],"tags":[727,550,574,2546,551,178,1926],"class_list":["post-9389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-music","category-psychedelia","category-science-fiction","tag-burne-hogarth","tag-jimmy-page","tag-kaleidoscope","tag-kaleidoscope-band","tag-led-zeppelin","tag-the-beatles","tag-tsunehisa-kimura"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-2rr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}