Description

Clear yellow vinyl

In the beginning of August of 1966, Brian Wilson began planning a new album project, first called Dumb Angel and later SMiLE. Working from the ideas in his head, he and his studio musicians and bandmates recorded continually during late 1966 and early 1967, putting down hours of tape during dozens of sessions. He laboured over every note and, more than that, every tone, often asking his musicians or the Beach Boys themselves to revise when the results didn’t match his conception of the music going on inside his head. Such care and control produced music that was far beyond Pet Sounds, and when the impressionistic themes and lyrics of collaborator Van Dyke Parks were added, SMiLE began shaping up as the most unique album ever produced by a pop group (as most music fans know, the album was never completed, although elements of the whole have trickled out ever since.) Unfortunately Brian’s inner demons and pressures from the outside were too much for a young man to bear. The recording was abandoned as the man was literally trying to create a digital process before any such technology existed. This album was almost like brain surgery after a point. Too many pieces, too complex and too hard to explain to those wanting another hit song about cars or surfing. Brian was working hard to move away from that, but collapsed under the weight of supporting his family. No one will ever know what effect a SMiLE release in spring 1967 would have had on music or pop culture, and with the music so circular and the lyrics so obtuse, it’s could have been that SMiLE would have become merely a curio of psychedelic excess or if completed as intended, this would have changed the musical landscape, and been a true answer to Sgt Pepper’s. But regardless, it shows Brian Wilson’s mastery of pure studio sonics and his ability to not only create distinctive pop music, but give it great beauty as well. This vinyl single features two tracks from the SMiLE sessions.

Track list:
1. Cabin Essence
2. Wonderful