Record of the Week — FORGE YOUR OWN CHAINS: Heavy Psychedelic Ballads and Dirges, 1968-1974

STOP SMILING presents the weekly mp3 blog, in which we showcase one new release each Tuesday, along with a track from the albumforge-cover +++ This week’s record is Forge Your Own Chains: Heavy Psychedelic Ballads and Dirges, 1968-1974 by Various Artists (Now-Again) +++ Now-Again Records, a Stones Throw subsidiary, presents a compendium of tracks that charts the spread of psychedelic music from the United States out into the world and back, in an effort to help hip hop heads, funk aficionados and vinyl diggers in general connect the dots between the superficially disparate genres that all similarly make us want to groove; the album’s thick and gorgeous liner notes contain an introduction by Egon that provides context for the reissue’s creation — a conversation with DJ Shadow, and J Rocc‘s piqued curiosity upon overhearing Forge Your Own Chains‘ title track — plus artwork from the original albums, and thorough background on the artists, who come from all over the world, including Iran, Sweden, Korea, Columbia and Nigeria, the origin of this jam +++ Audio – “Two to Make a Pair” by The Strangers. – Post by Nate Martin