Surrealistic Pillow [Original recording remastered, Import]

Hailing from San Francisco – the same breeding ground as their mates the Grateful Dead – the band regrouped and swapped members to release their second album in February 1967. Their debut, released the previous year, was a typical folk-rock record that never became more than locally popular. Out went drummer Skip Spence and pregnant vocalist Signe Anderson, and in came Spencer Dryden and, most significantly, the stunning raven-haired Grace Slick. Slick’s dark powerful vocals had marked out her previous band, the Great Society, from the rest of the local San Franciscan scene, and her recruitment was a major coup for the band. Not only did she add a extra dimension in sound that neither Anderson nor male vocalist Marty Balin could offer, she also bore two compositions that had become fan favourites with her former band.

‘Somebody To Love’ and ‘White Rabbit’ (originally ‘Someone To Love’ and ‘White Rabbit Blues’) became top ten singles and Jefferson Airplane classics. The former, a slow-fast-slow chorus-led track with the Great Society, became a rocking breathless track of unremitting power.... The latter, a track inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, mixed stripped-down bass and guitar with a powerful vocal crescendo not seen with such authority since Ravel’s Bolero. ‘Go ask Alice – I think she’ll know’ Slick commanded as the band created a haunting anthem packed into two and a half minutes.

Slick’s vocals were not all pervasive, however. Standout opener ‘She Has Funny Cars’ reveals how well Balin and Slick could mix, while Balin (one of the founding members) received top billing in several others – notably in the exquisite ‘Today’ and closer ‘Plastic Fantastic Lover’. Surrealistic Pillow is an album of remarkable variety, including ballads (‘Comin Back To Me’, ‘Today’), mid-tempo folk rock (‘DCBA-25’, ‘3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds’) and even the solitary instrumental (‘Embryonic Journey’). Each fits into a seamless whole, exemplifying the proverbial ‘sum greater than its individual parts’. As Colin Larkin notes, there is nothing remotely weird about this recording, which is why it has lasted so well. Read more ›

Opening with the magnificent “She Has Funny Cars” – with its, for the time, bizarre song structure, driving drums & guitars, and wonderful vocal interactions between Grace Slick & Marty Balin – the album is an almost perfect example of everything that was good about “hippie” music. Moving effortlessly between progressive rock (“Somebody to Love”, “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” & “Plastic Fantastic Lover”), wistful introspection (“Today”, “Embryonic Journey” & “Coming Back to Me”) and barrier bending innovation (“She Has Funny Cars”, “D.C.B.A. - 25” & “White Rabbit”) it captured a group at the peak of their powers, born out of and immersed in a world where they were encouraged to push their music into totally new areas.... And underpinning it all is the “atmosphere” of San Francisco in its fleeting period when hippie ideals really were musically relevant… nothing from the Airplane, or indeed any of their San Francisco contemporaries, caught the feel of the time & place as well as “Surrealistic Pillow” and, like all classic albums, it remains as interesting and listenable today as it did all those years ago. Read more ›