John And Philipa Cooper – The Cooperville Times(1969 SOUTH AFRICA Folk Rock, Psychedelic Rock)Full

Spooky psychedelic folk featuring the unmistakable guitar sounds of Julian Laxton. Very little is known about this band however their rare debut album is a collectors item worldwide. Amazing late 60's psych- folk group from Johannesburg, South Africa. Full of accoustic guitar, with violins, flute and male/ female vocals and among others their song "Gipsy spell" is excellent!!! Undeniable similarities with Mellow Candle and also sounding very close to big UK folk- psych albums of the era like Ithaca.An absolute masterpiece and a real must for any psychedelic or folk fan. This South African psych-pop rarity was buried so far beneath the drifts of history that even the skilled archivists of the Shadoks label had a hell of a time digging up the original recordings for reissue. Recorded right in the psychedelic sweet spot of 1968 and released the following year, The Cooperville Times is the only album by brother-and-sister duo John & Philipa Cooper. It blends the pop and folk ends of the 60s U.K. psych spectrum, with John leaning toward the former and Philipa toward the latter as they alternate lead vocals (there's not a lot of two-part harmony on the album). All the hallmarks of the paisley-patterned era are here -- Baroque bits of harpsichord accompaniment, pastoral flute lines, tremolo guitar -- just the sort of touches guaranteed to make psych collectors foam at the mouth. And in a genre where obscurities sometimes tend to remain obscure for a reason, The Cooperville Times proves to be a quality piece of work, with John Cooper's songcraft standing apart from the pack. And while he's got a strong melodic sense with memorable hooks to spare, his lyrics are particularly meritorious; on the surface, they seem to delve into the trippy, canyons-of-your-mind territory so common to psychedelia, but a closer listen reveals that Cooper has a well-developed sense of poetic imagery, and a gift for surreal settings. When he sings about the "Man in a Bowler Hat," for instance, he's in keeping with the surrealist tradition of the legendary Magritte painting that is the song's namesake. And though he's an effective singer, things take a particularly striking turn when his sister steps up to the microphone; her haunting vocal style is very much in line with the work of contemporaneous U.K. psych-folk sirens like Jill Child of Midwinter and Alison O'Donnell of Mellow Candle. 01. The mad professor 00:00 02. Gipsy spell 02:53 03. I'll be more than satisfied 05:35 04. Wild daydreams 07:44 05. Edge of eternity 10:18 06. My pair of spectaclesSide two: 12:30 07. Man in a bowler hat 14:56 08. Singing my song 17:36 09. Broomstick 19:41 10. Good old sun 22:19 11. She's my woman 24:52 Personnel *John Cooper - Vocals *Philipa Cooper - Vocals *Julian Laxton - Guitar *Ivor Back - Drums *Werner Krupski - Keyboards *Art De Villiers - Acoustic Guitar *Bob Hill - Bass *Francesco - Fiddle *Rory Blackwell - Tambourine