Welcome back to the 1960s—at least sonically.
We had our first child in 1996. That is the best explanation I have for missing “Anemone” when it was released and not discovering it until more than 25 years later.
The song comes from the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request. Its hypnotic bass, tambourine, droning keyboards, psychedelic guitar and Mara Keagle’s cool, distant vocal create an atmosphere that seems to exist outside time. It was one of the moodiest songs of the 1990s, but it would also have been one of the coolest and moodiest songs of the 1960s.
It doesn’t merely imitate that decade. It recreates the sensation of discovering a mysterious record from it.
“Anemone” is definitely a time-machine song.
Thanks, Brian Jonestown Massacre.