Comedy/Spoken — All Formats  

Wild, psychedelic era material from the very hip Lutheran pastor Brother John Rydgren! He sports a smoky voice and a poetic, playful, almost comedic spoken word style – in a way that's very much reminiscent of Ken Nordine – as if Ken was a groovy Christian poet! The sound is fuzzy, tripped out psychedelic pop – and his mission seems to be to satirize the sounds and styles of the time as much as it is to spread the Good Word – but at the same time, he's fully embracing the psychedelic sounds! It's almost entirely spoken word on the vocal front – with some oddball choir backdrops and other, often female voices floating in and out from time to time – and pretty diverse instrumentation that often feels like he's vocalizing over some psych funk sound library grooves! Also like our man Nordine, Brother John was a radio personality – but he released some incredibly rare LPs – with '68's Silhouette Segments, '67's Cantata Of New Life and '66's World Of Youth anthologized here by Omni – along with some additional material and a nice little booklet. Incredibly cool stuff! Includes "Music To Watch Girls By", "The Happening", "An Offering Of Music", "Butterfly", "Great To Build Something", "The Air Terminal", the nearly half hour "Cantata Of New Life", "News (The Kite And The News)", "Forgiveness (The Boy Looking Natural)", "Baptism (Come To War)", "Martyrs" and more.

Wild! The Nutty Squirrels were an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of Alvin & The Chipmunks during the late 50s – a studio-trickery session handled with the voices of Don Elliott and Sascha Burland – but to our ears, honestly, the album's a lot better! You see, both Elliott and Burland had their jazz chops down pretty tight – and the record is less an album of novelty pop numbers, than it is a set of jazz vocal tunes, scatted along over small combo backing, with the voices sped up on tape so that they sound like a pair of jazzy squirrels! The album's got none of the cloying aspects of The Chimpunks' work – and if you can get past the squeakiness of the vocals, you'll actually find the record pretty appealing from a jazz perspective. Titles include "Bob White", "That's Owl, Brother", "Yardbird Suite", "Flamingo", "Bird Watching", "Sparrow In The Treetop", and "Didee Bird". Imagine Jon Hendricks and Dave Lambert locked in a studio with a tank of helium – and you'll get the idea!

A pretty compelling album for Sidney – a selection of poems written by African Americans – stretching back across a variety of styles, and read to musical accompaniment and strange production effects! Sidney's joined by Doris Belack, who provides a female voice on a few numbers – and the overall style of the album is quite dark, almost somber – with lots of echo on the vocals, and added percussion, harp, piano, and other incidental sound bits. Titles include "When Malinda Sings", "Mother To Son", "The Debt", "At Candle Lightin Time", "The Creation", "Yet I Do Marvel", "Debate Of Dark Brothers", "Epigram", "We Wear The Mask", and "When You Have Forgotten Sunday".