Song of the Day: Continuing our sequence of songs around the theme of mental health, the oddball, hallucinogenic opener from the last solo album by the founder of Pink Floyd, released in 1970
Read moreSyd Barrett – Baby Lemonade
Syd Barrett
The Move - Cherry Blossom Clinic
The Move, featuring the moustachioed Roy Wood, in 1968.
Song of the Day: Moving on from Johnny Cash's Hurt, we return to an upbeat, colourful song about mental health problems, penned by the eccentric Roy Wood, who later of course, became a hirsute star of Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard
Read moreVan Der Graaf Generator – House With No Door
Van Der Graaf Generator in 1970
Song of the Day: With yesterday's David Byrne tracks being two of several by him with a house theme, today we visit another songwriter who uses them as metaphor extensively – Van Der Graaf Generator frontman Peter Hammill
Read moreGenesis – Dancing With the Moonlit Knight
Peter Gabriel, aged 23, in the early days of Genesis.
Song of the Day: Moonlight, eccentricity and experimental obscurity have very much been the direction of SOTD recently, and so it's time to unashamedly progressively rock on to Peter Gabriel's old band at their finest – when he still led it
Read moreCan – Come Sta, La Luna / Chain Reaction
Over the moon and far away: Can in 1973 and their cover for the album Soon Over Babaluma
Song of the Day: Continuing the lunar theme, and extending to the outer limits of experimentalism after Moondog and Captain Beefheart, the sequence also ties in with the German band also highly influential on the late Mark E Smith
Read moreMoondog – Lament I, Bird's Lament / Moondog Monologue
Moondog in Manhattan
Song of the Day: After Captain Beefheart, could there be any musical figure more influential, eccentric, strange and innovative? Louis Thomas Hardin, aka the Viking figure who for years silently stalked New York's 6th Avenue, is a strong contender
Read moreCaptain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Moonlight On Vermont / Tropical Hot Dog Night
Captain Beefheart, aka Don Van Vliet – musician, artist, visionary.
Song of the Day: With the recent passing of The Fall's Mark E Smith, and all the songs, tributes and stories that have followed, it now seems only appropriate to follow up with music Smith loved by one of his major influences
Read moreAphrodite's Child – The Four Horsemen
Big Demis and friends: Aphrodite's Child back in the day
Song of the Day: Why the hell not? Let's delve deep into darkest psychedelia and prog-rock, do deep in fact, that we go Greek, in the company of Demis Roussos before be became a tent-wearing behemoth solo artist, and Vangelis Papathanassiou before his film score fame
Read moreFrank Zappa – Peaches en Regalia
Frank Zappa: masterful, mischievous invention
Song of the Day: How could there a more joyful, eccentric, evocative and infinitely inventive opener than this, on album described by Zappa as "a movie for the ears" – 1969's Hot Rats?
Read moreSufjan Stevens – Christmas Unicorn
Few people do Christmas like Sufjan Stevens
Song of the Day: Christmas is a time of tradition and cliches, but if there's one artist who manages to address the festive season with full enthusiasm but in a altogether alternative manner, it is the Detroit-born, Brooklyn-based singer
Read more!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Must Be The Moon / Dancing Is The Best Revenge
Unstoppable … !!! work up a sweat on stage
Song of the Day: It is hard to find any material more energising than the music of the New York dance-postpunk band originally from Sacramento, California, who have been delivering blistering live performances for more than 20 years
Read moreJefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
Grace Slick with Jefferson Airplane
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Frightened Rabbit, it was simply too tempting to follow down this particular hole in this wondrous psychedelic number written and sung by Grace Slick
Read moreDeerhoof – Come Down Here & Say That / The Devil and his Anarchic Surrealist Retinue
Deerhoof
Song of the Day: Our continuing theme certainly behooves a song or two from this wonderfully quirky band hailing from San Francisco
Read moreChrome Hoof – Tonyte / Spokes of Uridium
Chrome Hoof. From another time, another place …
Song of the Day: Another selection made on the hoof, and today we're really pushing to the outer reaches of experimentation with the strange fusion of dance, psychedelia, prog-rock, jazz and electronica provided by London group from their second album, 2007's Pre-Emptive False Rapture
Read moreThe Hare and Hoofe - White Blindness
Look out, it's the Hare and Hoofe …
Song of the Day: Scampering on from yesterday's Beth Jean Houghton and her Hooves, let's indulge in a bit of Sunday silliness in the beautiful shape of more fast moving animal feet, this Folkestone-formed five-piece
Read moreGoat – Hide From The Sun / Run To Your Mama
Sweden's Goat. They'll take you somewhere new …
Song of the Day: From yesterday's The Mountain Goat's to plain old Goat today, except there's nothing plain about this extraordinary psychedelic band from Sweden, who are taking music forward, back and to another place altogether
Read moreShuggie Otis / The Brothers Johnson – Strawberry Letter 23
Shuggie Otis in his days as teenage prodigy. He is now 63 and still going strong
Song of the Day: A psychedelic soul classic from Shuggie, aka Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr, the California singer-songwriter from his 1971 album Freedom Flight, which 1977 became a funk hit produced by Quincy Jones
Read moreUnknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love
Multi-dimensional life: from Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Multi-Love video
Song of the Day: From yesterday's Unknown by Clem Snide to the title track to the third 2015 album by New Zealand-US band started and fronted by Ruban Nielson. Multi-layered and uncategorisable, this prog-rock, pop and psychedelia work concerns a tricky love triangle which turns into a polyamorous situation
Read moreCarla dal Forno – The Garden
Carla dal Forno
Song of the Day: Sculptured, sparse, dark and melancholic, this title track is from a new four-song EP by the London-based Australian artist who has also worked in Berlin. The title is nod to Einstürzende Neubauten, but here day becomes night, a place of refuge, glissando bass and brittle effects, but also fear and fragile emotion, and echoes of Massive Attack's Protection
Read moreFoxygen – San Francisco / Follow The Leader
Foxygen
Song of the Day: Particularly known for their theatrical, extravagant performances, the Californian duo of Jonathan Rado and Sam France can sound, as on these tracks, like a throwback to early-70s hippy psychedelia or stage musicals, but these are some of many styles they can play with
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