The Electric Prunes - Original Album Series (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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The Electric Prunes - Original Album Series (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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allmusic.com biography: Though they got considerable input from talented L.A. songwriters and producers, with their two big hits penned by outside sources, the Electric Prunes did by and large play the music on their records, their first lineup writing some respectable material of their own. On their initial group of recordings, they produced a few great psychedelic garage songs, especially the scintillating "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night," which mixed distorted guitars and pop hooks with inventive, oscillating reverb. Songwriters Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz wrote most of the Prunes' material, much of which in turn was crafted in the studio by Dave Hassinger, who had engineered some classic Rolling Stones sessions in the mid-'60s. "Too Much to Dream" was a big hit in 1967, and the psychedelized Bo Diddley follow-up, "Get Me to the World on Time," was just as good, and also a hit. Nothing else by the group made it big, and their initial pair of albums was quite erratic, although a few scattered tracks were nearly as good as those singles. Although they began to write more of their own material on their second album, their subsequent releases were apparently the products of personnel who had little to do with the original lineup. Their third LP, Mass in F Minor, was a quasi-religious concept album of psychedelic versions of prayers; a definitively excessive period piece, its best song ("Kyrie Eleison") was lifted for the Easy Rider soundtrack. None of the original Prunes were still in the lineup when the band dissolved, unnoticed, at the end of the '60s.

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The Electric Prunes - Original Album Series (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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The Electric Prunes - The Electric Prunes (1967)
FLAC with CUE & LOG - 184 MB | 29:52 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 68 MB

allmusic.com says: As the throbbing buzz of Ken Williams' tremolo-laden fuzztone guitar creeps from one side of the stereo spectrum to the other, the Electric Prunes kick off their debut album with their first (and biggest) hit single, and if Electric Prunes: I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) never hits the high point of its title track again, the next 11 songs confirm that these guys were in the first echelon of American garage bands of the '60s. In the grand tradition of most garage rock albums, the best tracks on this disc are the singles, which along with the title track include "Get Me to the World on Time" and the surprisingly effective B-sides "Luvin'" and "Are You Loving Me More (But Enjoying It Less)," but the other tunes are more than just filler. On nearly every song, Williams and fellow guitarists Weasel Spagnola and Jim Lowe spin a web of gloriously strange sounds, making the most of a battery of stomp boxes, and bassist Mark Tulin and drummer Preston Ritter provide a solid, percolating backdrop for their faux-psychedelic soundscapes. Producer David Hassinger would in time become a bad guy in the Electric Prunes' story, but on these sessions he gives them a great studio sound, specious but full of details, and at its best this album does as well by its three-guitar team as Moby Grape's epochal debut. And if songs like the weepy soft rock number "Onie," the phony Brit-folk of "The King Is in the Counting House" and the goofball nostalgia of "Toonerville Trolly" suggest Hassinger didn't always know what sort of material to fit with the band (who were only allowed to record two of their own songs), the Prunes rise to the occasion no matter what's thrown at them (and Jim Lowe's vocal suggests he knew just how ridiculous "Toonerville Trolly" would sound). While the Sonics and the Litter made more consistent albums, few if any bands from the '60s garage came up with a sound as distinctive as the Electric Prunes, and they got it on tape with striking success on I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night).

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The Electric Prunes - Original Album Series (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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The Electric Prunes - Underground (1967)
FLAC with CUE & LOG - 228 MB | 36:31 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 83 MB

allmusic.com says: According to Electric Prunes members Jim Lowe and Mark Tulin, producer Dave Hassinger enjoyed enough success as a result of the group's early hit singles and their subsequent debut album that he was too busy to spend much time with them as they were recording the follow up, and that was arguably a good thing for the band. While Underground didn't feature any hit singles along the lines of "I Had to Much to Dream (Last Night)," it's a significantly more consistent work than the debut, and this time out the group was allowed to write five of the disc's twelve songs, allowing their musical voice to be heard with greater clarity. As on their first LP, the Electric Prunes' strongest asset was the guitar interplay of Jim Lowe, Ken Williams and James "Weasel" Spagnola, and while they became a bit more restrained in their use of fuzztone, wah-wah and tremolo effects, there's a unity in their attack on Underground that's impressive, and the waves of sound on "Antique Doll," "Big City" and " "Children of Rain" reveal a new level creative maturity (though they could make with a wicked, rattling fuzz on "Dr. Do-Good"). If Underground ultimately isn't as memorable as the Electric Prunes' first album, it's a matter of material – while the outside material that dominated the debut was sometimes ill-fitting, it also gave them some stone classic tunes like "I Had Too Much to Dream" and "Get Me to the World on Time," and the band themselves didn't have quite that level of songwriting chops, while the hired hands didn't deliver the same sort of material for Underground. Still, the album shows that the Electric Prunes had the talent to grow into something more mature and imaginative than their reputation suggested, and it's all the more unfortunate that the group's identity would be stripped from them for the next album released under their name, Mass in F Minor.

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The Electric Prunes - Original Album Series (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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The Electric Prunes - Mass In F Minor (1968)
FLAC with CUE & LOG - 148 MB | 26:28 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 61 MB

allmusic.com says: For fans of the Electric Prunes, the 1968 Reprise album Mass in F Minor is a disaster, but for aficionados of failed and bizarre concept records of the late '60s, it's definitely worth investigating. The eight tracks on this religious-based rock opera (with lyrics sung in Latin!) were written, arranged, and conducted by classical composer David Axelrod and spurred on by then-Prunes manager Lenny Poncher and record producer Dave Hassinger. Evidently, all parties involved, including the band, agreed that this project would propel the Electric Prunes from minor-league garage rockers into a finely tuned psychedelic ensemble to be taken seriously as musicians and artists. Unfortunately, the Prunes were not prepared to tackle Axelrod's complex and involved arrangements without a major struggle. In order to keep the sessions from going into costly overtime, Hassinger brought in studio musicians to finish the project. The results were completely unlike the group's previous two releases, with the majority of the tracks being performed by ad hoc Prunes. Shortly after the album's release, the original lineup faded into obscurity, taking Mass in F Minor with them. However, an eerie version of "Kyrie Eleison" received fleeting attention when it was featured in the film Easy Rider.

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The Electric Prunes - Original Album Series (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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The Electric Prunes - Release Of An Oath (1968)
FLAC with CUE & LOG - 159 MB | 25:17 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 56 MB

allmusic.com says: The second album on which composer David Axelrod and producer Dave Hassinger usurped the name of the Electric Prunes (the band which recorded "I Had Too Much Too Dream Last Night" had long since split – their names and likenesses are nowhere to be found on this LP) is much less notorious than its predecessor, Mass in F Minor. This is a shame, because it's actually the better album by far. Mass in F Minor is a halting, muddy attempt at combining rock and classical instrumentation, an idea that's better explored on Release of an Oath (which is, according to the liner notes, based on a centuries-old prayer called the Kol Nidre). Songs like the liturgical "Holy Are You" and the mostly instrumental "General Confessional" combine swirling string and woodwind parts with heavy guitar and organ in a more organic and cohesive fashion than before. Musically complex and intriguing without being nearly as pretentious as a capsule description might indicate, Release of an Oath is a remarkable piece of early American progressive rock. Be aware, however, that it's quite brief even by '60s standards: the whole thing is over in 25 and a half minutes.

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The Electric Prunes - Original Album Series (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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The Electric Prunes - Just Good Old Rock And Roll (1969)
FLAC with CUE & LOG - 230 MB | 37:33 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 86 MB

allmusic.com says: Just Good Old Rock and Roll by the Electric Prunes has an ominous "the new improved" before their name on the cover of this effort, and despite original producer Dave Hassinger's contributions, it fails to come anywhere near the greatness of "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night." A good tune like "So Many People to Tell" is offset by the difficult "Giant Sunhorse," which destroys any momentum created by the aforementioned best track on the disc, much like a double play in a tight baseball game. The boring riff goes nowhere and it is a disappointing way to lead off side two, when the first five songs show some bit of promise. If Stephen Stills fronting Country Joe & the Fish by way of the Grateful Dead with lackluster material is your cup of tea, side two descends into that dysfunctional morass, a band sliding sideways and not living up to the psychedelic power their first big hit boasted. If you ever wondered what you didn't like about Rare Earth, it might be that the drummer was doing the singing. Dick Whetstone has "drums and lead vocals" under his name and there you go. None of the original band members from the first two discs or the live album from 1967 are here. Dave Hassinger is like Maurice Starr trying to put together another New Kids on the Block with new faces. This is the Electric Prunes in name only, and if you place it next to "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night," this album gives Milli Vanilli credibility.