One more quick hit/impulse buy before I move onto the next series. I’m almost positive I came across the psychedelic stylings of Sweet Slag from Smokin’ Joe and the HiFi Dream Machine, the weekly radio show hosted by Joe Macchia (who also happens to manage my local record shop Needle + Groove). Damned if I can recall now what track it was, but at some point I tracked down Tracking With Close-Ups, the UK band’s one and only release. Equal doses of psychedelia, garage, progressive and soul groove, it’s a rock record that goes places. Too many of these one-record wonders get lost in the shuffle of the more mainstream, “classic” rock of the period, so it’s always fun to sit back and listen to what else was coming out at the time. Good stuff here, so let’s dig into it.

The band is comprised of Mick Kerensky on vocals and guitar, Paul Jolly on all woodwinds, including alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet, oboe, and flute, Jack O’Neill on bass and trombone, and Al Chambers on percussion. That lineup alone should give you a hint as to the kind of music to expect, and within the first minute or so of opening track “Specific” you’d be right. After a bluesy riff the song takes off with a drive that in its middle section explodes into an experimental, almost Zappa-like passage where instruments collide and careen about. “Milk Train” has a fantastic acoustic riff that opens the song, Chambers’s drums shuffling the tune forward. Again (this may be a theme) the star of the song is the middle break, Jolly soloing with sax against a great rhythm section anchored by O’Neill’s bass playing. The liner notes talk about proto-metal, but to my ears it’s more pre-In Rock Deep Purple when they were heavily pumping the psychedelia in their music. Kerensky is an interesting guitarist – there are definite shades of Zappa’s influence in the way he solos. The sing ends with some string bends and segues to forlorn horns in “Rain Again” with noodling guitar that in small moments comes across like a beginner trying to learn “Thunderstruck”. Then the piece settles into a nice, slow funky 60s groove. The end of each section speeds up into a great little vamp very reminiscent of the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post” before settling back down. I love the solo section here – it sounds like two different styles and tempos clashing against each other, but still working (you can hear the track here). Things get positively chaotic in the best way for this standout track, a far cry from the meh boogie blues of “Patience which is fine, though not necessarily of the caliber of the rest of the side.

Side B kicks off with another twisted progressive exploration appropriately titled “Twisted Trip Woman.” If there’s a common theme here, it’s a slightly repetitive riff on “standard blues rock that morphs into experimental psychedelic swirling solos” and knowing that maybe fades the bloom from the flower a bit for Tracking With Close-Ups. “World of Ice” shakes it up a bit by being truly psychedelic throughout its seven and a half minutes. Lots of gongs and acoustic breaks in additional to the more orchestrated madness common to the rest of the album. Finally there’s “Babyi Ar” which drives really heavy (maybe this is the proto-metal?) even with the horn breaks and swirling guitars.

I’m not one to really ding a band for repetitiveness – are you going to levy that claim on Motörhead? The Ramones? Sweet Slag found a very distinct groove on Tracking With Close-Ups, and for the one-off it is, I dig it. had they more time to expand and play with the form a bit, who knows what could have happened?