INTERSYSTEMS
“Free Psychedelic Poster Inside”

Drawing on huge array of different sources, Intersystems occupied a difficult-to-reach critical nook between the many tropes that had established to frame the various artistic trends of 1960’s.
Announcing itself with a quivering beam of fluorescent sound, the beginning of Intersystems’ “Free Psychedelic Poster Inside” feels as though it’s slowly piercing right through your frontal lobe. As suggestive of hypnosis as it is of a sonic lobotomy, it makes a foreboding complement to Blake Parker’s poetry, this time a dark glimpse into mundane domesticity and the suburbs. One can’t help but sense that they’re being brainwashed: the slow metamorphosis of sound is juxtaposed against Parker’s even-tempered yet electronically-tampered-with speech.
There are occasional hints at the twitchy energy of “Peachy”, but everything is braced by a spine of lean, cool tones, making “Free Psychedelic Poster Inside” a far more stark outing than either of its predecessors. Yet the sense of impending danger and general volatility found in the rest of the catalogue is still present – if not amplified because of this more severe approach. In contrast to “Peachy”, the shapes the music cuts are smooth rather than jagged, but one is never sure just when Parker’s strangely uninflected voice will emerge from the blinding aggregates of pure colour. While these clusters of glowing sustain assert an aggressive mesmerism, they serve as a primer for the ears, ominously readying them for virtually anything to happen.
When something does, there’s often a sense mild alarm on the listener’s part even when said change comes in the form of a reprieve from the relentless swarms of high frequency – cascades of synthetic giggles, sliding slow elastic melodies, vigorous strobing modulations and bubbling passages of electronic fizz.
Musician and insatiable collector Julian Cope, on his exhaustive online chronicle of all things rare and psychedelic, “Head Heritage” calls Intersystems third LP “one of the densest, most oblique collections of sound ever”. While it’s hard not to feel smothered by its slow concentrated seep, there’s also a vague air of contemplation that permeates its gradual unfolding.
This edition of “Free Psychedelic Poster Inside” LP presents the original (double) title-tracks. Re-mastered by John Mills-Cockell. Mastered for cutting by Giuseppe Ielasi.
Edition limited to 300 copies with original LP graphics as well as a new insert .