Chrysalis - Definition
Back in the late 60's, San Francisco band like the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead were highly popular. MGM Records tried to duplicate the phenomenon by mining a different territory, and producing a series of albums from Boston based bands they labeled the "Bosstown Sound".
Chrysalis was one release. Definition was their only album, and it became a cult favorite. It's been on my top ten albums list from when I first heard it. The sound is psychedelic. Leader J. Spider Barbour was a grad student in entomology, and the songs are full of odd insect references, like the mayfly, cleaning wings singed by a candle flame, becoming a metaphor for the singer's failed romance. And for just outright weird, "Dr. Root's Garden", in which kids play outside his house, while inside, Dr. Root breeds bottles of disease to loose upon the world he thinks has wronged him.
Spider is still around, a biologist living in upstate NY, who also plays with a local band called the Curmudgeons.
http://www.ulster.net/~spider/
The
Rev-Ola specialty label in the UK re-released Definition on CD with bonus tracks , but this is the original vinyl.
Just wonderful.
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Dennis