Hague, Netherlands [Philips PY 844083]
Reviews:
Clearly a parallel group to Pink Floyd, Agemo's Trip to Mother Earth is taken from the same cloth as Saucerful of Secrets. In retrospect, though, Group 1850's work is more creative which one may expect from a Continental band without any commercial restraints. Sure, there are some pure psych moments to be had - but just hearing the title track should put anyone in awe who can hear this is an historical perspective. There just flat out wasn't anything like this in 1968. The fuzz guitar, the trippy voices, the acid induced phased effects, and the drumming (oh - the drumming). It's a bona fide masterpiece in the field of psychedelic progressive music.
(Tom Hayes, 2001, Gnosis)
Group 1850 is a Dutch band playing 60s psychedelica with elements of West Coast acid rock and early Pink Floyd. Some parts are a bit dated, especially the central "trippy" and/or hilarious part in the 10 minute plus "Ï Put My Hand on Your Shoulder". Lots of "Mother Earth" worshipping and "we should be all together" declamation in Dutch and terribly accented English and German! Nevertheless, this is quite an excellent album in the style mentioned above.
(Sjef Oellers, 2001, Gnosis)
If you buy just one late 60s psychedelic album, this would be a great start. I had a tape of it in the early 90's, and when I heard the CD came out with tons of bonus trax, I was in heaven. It's worth the import price! Great melodies, strong guitar work, and experimentation that works! If you like Pink Floyd, Psychedelic Music, or just good late 60s music, then this is the S@#T. You may also want to check out Bent Wind, Aguaturbia, Music Emporium, Morgen, Tomorrow, etc.
One of the greatest psychedelic albums ever released. I don't say that lightly, as I own around 1000 U.S. and import psychedelic releases from the late 60s and this one is in my top 20.
(Michael Soucy, Amazon)
Group 1850 formed in The Hague in 1964 as The Klits, but chose their new name in January 1965 when Hugo Gordijn became their manager. They signed a deal with Phonogram and soon they were ready for their first album and "Agemo's Trip" was the result. It just happens to be massively psychedelic, even though not very widely known. The original sleeve notes tell of a trip of a mythical being whose spiritual father sends him on a search for enlightenment. He goes to a place (Earth) where people follow organised religion without knowing why. He enlightens the people of the world and leads them to the place (and state of mind) that he came from.
It was released in 1968, sank without a trace, and gradually became an expensive collector's item.
There are echoes of Chocolate Watchband and Misunderstood on the opener (Steel Sings), which climaxes in a stunning Airplane-like guitar solo. 'Little Fly' compounds the influences even further, sounding a bit Canterburyish in places. 'I Put My Hand On Your Shoulder' is a 13-minute epic with tremendously heavy phasing, and insistent voices talking alternately in Dutch and English. The totally surreal vocals and the drum phasing getting deeper and deeper make the track extremely freaky, but there's a reassuring quality in the midst of all the psychedelic mayhem. This track really is a psychedelic classic that make "Agemo's Trip" a must for any collection of psychedelia.
'You Did It Too Hard,' is a bit of an oddity with spaced-out hippy improvised spoken bits at the end. The album continues in similar insane style on 'A Point In This Life' with harpsichord and sliding distorted guitar. Things calm down for 'Refound" and "Reborn" the final two tracks on the original album, with gentle flutes and female vocals asking us to "look inside and find the inner light", not to mention sitar-like guitar solos and twittering birds.
There are a dozen bonus tracks on the CD reissue, mostly singles. 'Misty Night,' their first single has a tremendous garagey feel, and on 'Mother No-Head' incredibly, there is an overdriven guitar playing 'Frere Jacques' Unexpected to say the least, but it really works! From the value-for-money standpoint, it's a good idea to include these songs; whether it works artistically to include them with the concept album is doubtful.
(Doctor Dark, Pooterland)
Agemo's Trip to Mother Earth was one of the most ambitious psychedelic albums to emerge from continental Europe in the late '60s. The LP's nominal concept was, like many early such endeavors, obscure, involving something like the journey of Agemo from a paradise-like planet to the more chaotic imperfection of Earth. Musically, the record owes a lot to late-'60s British psychedelia (particularly of the Pink Floyd school), with hints of the onset of progressive rock in its less-conventional passages. Although plenty of melodic shifts, celestial organ, wiggling distorted guitar, harmony vocals, Gregorian chant-like singing, Mothers of Invention-like horns, beatific respites (on "Reborn"), and general freakiness entertainingly convey the exploration of new psychic territory, it ultimately lacks the lyrical and musical cogency of, say, late-'60s Pink Floyd. At times the bold weirdness gets self-indulgent, throwing in phased drum soloing, solemnly intoned spoken female romantic exclamations, and multilingual murmuring. The album was reissued, in its original sequence and its entirety, as part of the Group 1850 CD compilation 1967-1968.
(Richie Unterberger, Allmusic)
Legit 1997 CD reissue of the fabulous Dutch pysch masterpiece from 1968, the group's first album, originally issued by Philips in Europe only. They would follow it up with an equally good 2nd album Paradise Now in 1969, but further live albums and the disappointing Polyandri from 1975 were more marginal. The original LP sleeve for Agemo's Trip featured a 3-D design and this CD miraculously replicates that effect (3D glasses included with each CD). The CD also adds 13 bonus tracks, mostly early singles tracks (rendering a prior bootleg singles CD comp rather redundant), plus a couple of previously unreleased tracks. Agemo's Trip is in simple terms, one of the monster concept album artifacts of the psychedelic era. Beautifully dated in terms of sound & vision, it features fragile flute/piano/organ-built folk-like tracks that extrapolate into explosive guitar psych revolutions. The ghost of Jorma Kaukonen seems prominent in the lead guitar sections and a certain Airplane/Floyd approximation seems to be the goal. A tremendous value all round.
(Forced exposure)
Exact reissue of one of the greatest psychedelic albums that has ever come out of Europe. Mystical, spaced out, music by this cosmic Dutch band, filled with many diverse psychedelic effects and fantastic songs. Melody and improvisation perfectly combined. Certainly one of the greatest psychedelic albums that has ever come out of Europe. Mystical, spaced out, cosmic '60's Dutch psych filled with many diverse psychedelic effects and fantastic songs with an early Pink Floyd feel. Melody and improvisation perfectly combined. English vocals. A must!
(Freak Emporium)
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