One of the most luminous and idiosyncratic minds in the history of rock music, and one of its most durable myths, Syd Barrett (11) was the eccentric and idealistic soul of early Pink Floyd. After leaving the band, he recorded two masterpieces of psychedelic folk music, The Madcap Laughs (1970) and the even better Barrett (1970). Barrett's ballads are inspired by (and sung in the tone of) fairy tales and nursery rhymes, but betray paranoia and loneliness. His voice is nonchalant to the extent that it is pointless to fight the agony. His mind broadcasts visions of another world, and it almost sounds like Alice In Wonderland reporting from the underworld, but this is Alice after realizing that she can't go back anymore, Alice paralyzed by fear and anguish. Musically, Barrett, blessed with the gift of spontaneity, has a simple way to organize a broad palette, that runs the gamut from spiritual (Baby Lemonade) to ragtime (Gigolo Aunt) from blues (Rats) to circus music and the music-hall. His most perfect melody, Love Song, and the definitive anthem of his naive melancholy madness, Waving My Arms In The Air soar over the Dali-esque landscape. Because they defined, once and for all, the relationship between the "eccentric" and the "private" in music (in a manner similar to surrealism and psychoanalysis), those two albums would exert an unparalleled influence on subsequent generations of singer-songwriters. Barrett, whose mental health was rapidly deteriorating, would never record again.

Another psychedelic oddball, John "Twink" Alder (1), ex-Tomorrow and ex-Pretty Things, assembled another formidable repertory of nonsense, Think Pink (1970). Twink and remnants of the Deviants formed the Pink Fairies (2), who recorded two of hard-rock's most original albums: Never Never Land (1971), with Uncle Harry's Last Freak-out, and Kings Of Oblivion (1974).

The third solitary iconoclast of British psychedelia was Fleetwood Mac's guitarist Peter Green (10), who released the all-instrumental The End Of The Game (1970) before retiring for almost a decade. Borrowing the format of the jam session from jazz music, but the atmosphere from Ernst's surrealistic paintings, horror soundtracks and voodoo rituals, Green indulged in sheer sound-painting. The hallucinated ramble of the guitar weaves colorful textures for mantra-like psalms. It is visceral, primordial music that echoes the eruption of volcanoes, ocean tides and the life-cycle of equatorial forest. Green's expansion of consciousness is one of both folly and ecstasy, one that would be better defined as epic terror.

Hawkwind (2) pioneered "space-rock", a hybrid of hard-rock and acid-rock that united the sonic power of the former and the free improvisation of the latter (and Robert Calvert's sci-fi visions). In Search Of Space (1971) and Doremi Fasol Latido (1972), summarized on their Space Ritual (1973), refined the idea, but theirs was a cult phenomenon that focused mostly on live performance (somewhat similar to what had happened in the USA with the Grateful Dead) while boasting the frenzied, noisy attitude of the MC5. Hawkwind's gargantuan sound also represents a natural (no matter how demented) liaison between hippy culture and punk culture.

In the USA there were several cases of similar madness. Buffalo Springfield's bassist Bruce Palmer (1) released The Cycle Is Complete (1971), perhaps the single most "stoned" work of the era, before disappearing for good from the music scenes.

David Crosby (10), the former Byrds who can claim to be inventor of acid-rock, raga-rock and space-rock, released only one solo album before falling victim to his drugs addiction, but that album, If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971), that absorbed his experience with the Jefferson Airplane and with Crosby Stills Nash & Young, remains one of the most touching documents of the post-hippy era. Several historical figures of San Francisco's acid-rock scene attended the sessions, including most of the Jefferson Airplane and of the Grateful Dead. The melancholy, dreamy, ecstatic psalms of this album are embedded into loose, shimmering, impressionist structures. Crosby travels to another universe, whispers, wails, babbles, agonizes, radiates "om"s, chats with mirages and ghosts, sinks into a mystic-psychedelic trance.

Merrell Fankhauser (2), raised in Los Angeles to surf music (he wrote the Surfaris' Wipe Out), formed Mu along with Captain Beefheart's guitarist Jeff Cotton. Their first album, Mu (1971), was a unique example of mystic/exotic/acid rock. Relocating to Hawaii, Fankhauser churned out one bizarre album after the other, eventually attaining musical nirvana with Message To The Universe (1986), a metaphysical rock opera.

Protest folksinger Buffy Saint-Marie sang the hallucinated Illuminations (1969), arranged with electronic sounds by composer Michael Czajkowski.

Ya Ho Wha 13 (1) were formed in 1969 (also in Los Angeles) by a middle-aged beatnik called Jim Baker who believed himself a god and went by the nickname of Father Yod. On albums such as their masterpiece Penetration (1974) they delivered extreme psychedelic sound, that employed tribal drums and distorted guitars in a deliberately childish manner.

In Florida, Terry Brooks' Strange (1) recorded albums of dissonant, free-form psychedelia, such as Raw Power (1976).

Japanese space-rock 1970-73

Psychedelic-rock had been imported into Japan by countless cover bands and by original bands such as the Jacks, whose Vacant World (1968) was an early classic. Japanese space-rock was born with Hadaka no Rallizes (also known as Les Rallizes Denudes), a band that drew inspiration from the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable light and sound shows and from Blue Cheer's heavily amplified sound. Despite the fact that no one would hear it for two decades, Japan remained an invaluable source of space-rock bands.

The Taj Mahal Travellers (11), led by avantgarde composer and violinist Takehisa Kosugi, played lengthy improvised jams for small ensemble (violin, harmonica, bass, tuba, trumpet, synthesizer, mandolin, percussions) that can be summarized in three principles: a Far-Eastern approach to music as a living organism, an intense electronic processing of instruments and voices, a semi-mathematical overlapping of frequencies. Basically: LaMonte Young on acid. Collected on July 15 1972 and August 1974, their music ranged from cosmic hisses to nightmarish distortions, from pow-wow bacchanals to Tibetan-style chanting and droning.

Lost Aaraaff's Lost Aaraaff (1971) was devoted to three improvised jams. Their young guitarist, Keiji Haino (4) penned the eastern mass Ama No Gawa - Milky Way (1973). Then, inspired by free-jazz master Takayanagi Masayuki, Haino formed Fushitsusha (2) to play improvised psychedelic jams. Starting with Live I (1989), 100 minutes of noise that ranked among the masterpieces of the psychedelic jam of all times, a bacchanal that vomited debris of Blue Cheer, MC5, Iron Butterfly, free-jazz, Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix, this prolific trio (originally a quartet) released monumental and dissolute works that seemed to know no limits. Fushitsusha (1991) and Hisou - Pathetique (1994) were among the follow-ups, but later releases such as The Wisdom Prepared (1998) and I Saw It (2000) were equally torrential. In the meantime, Haino was also busy with Nijiumu and Vajra. His solo albums included the galactic suites Affection (1992) and Execration (1993), as well as his boldest experiment, I Said This Is The Son Of Nihilism (1995). As the influences of LaMonte Young and Brian Eno increased, Haino arrived at Abandon All Words At A Stroke So That Prayer Can Come Spilling Out (2001), which contains a hypnotic piece for hurdy-gurdy and treated voice, and an industrial collage of metallic noises, distortions and ghostly vocals, as well as to C'est Parfait (2003), one live track for rhythm box and vocals of Wagnerian intensity, Yaranai Ga Dekinai Ni Natte Yuku (2006), a manic tour de force of solo overdubbed guitar and vocals. His collaborations included Animamima (2006), with a twenty-piece sitar orchestra.

The music of Maru Sankaku Shikaku, active between 1970 and 1973, was an ethnic, mystical experience, that embraced the hippy spirit of Taj Mahal Travelers and Third Ear Band.

The eclectic style of the Flower Traveling Band (1) peaked with the five-part suite Satori (1971), a confluence of acid-rock, blues-rock, space-rock and hard-rock.