The original personnel listing for the Seeds’ third long-player, Future, included a credit to “your imagination”. It was lead singer Sky Saxon’s invitation for the listener to travel “back into your dreams”, to conjure up for themselves the fantasy landscape of castles, forests and clouds that he had envisaged for the record. Future embodied one of many tangents Sky had spun off upon, which led him from a knowing hipness to a wide-eyed, childlike naïveté. Behind, the Seeds packed as solid a musical punch as they ever had, but it was increasingly difficult for his fellow travellers to relate to the paths Sky was pointing the band down.
1967 was a turning point for Sky Saxon, Daryl Hooper, Jan Savage and Rick Andridge, a moment where the hard work of the previous two years was finally paying off. The first six months likely represented the zenith of the Seeds’ career, as the ascendant quartet seemed completely in the vanguard, with a major national hit under their belt, fan pandemonium wherever they went, and a public profile inflated by a new manager, the voluble “Lord Tim” Hudson. The eponymous debut album and its sequel, A Web Of Sound, had solidified the attitude implied by the hits, and saw the group made defiantly outrageous gestures, both musically and visually. What would their next move be?
The ensuing album, Future, seemed at once both calculated and confused. For some, it represents the Seeds’ grand psychedelic statement, a mind-blowing articulation of the flower power movement of which they had been proclaimed torchbearers. To others, Future is Sky Saxon’s folly: an over-egged, acid-damaged pudding that submerged the true power of the band with meaningless grandeur. The truth lies somewhere between. A narcissistic over-confidence made Sky feel the need to now augment Daryl, Jan and Rick in the studio with numerous overdubs – strings, harp, tuba – on hastily cobbled material that brimmed with bizarre lyrical concepts. On certain tracks the combination worked fine, on others it seemed almost like a parody of psychedelia. Nevertheless, Future contains many fan favourites such as Painted Doll, Flower Lady, Two Fingers and A Thousand Shadows.
From this point on, Sky’s grip on the qualities that made him distinctive would only loosen further, but on Future he was attentive enough to pull things together, and the album has enough fine moments and flashes of the old Sky Saxon laser-like focus to ensure its reputation today as something of a flawed gem.
Tracklist:
1. Intro/March Of The Flower Children
2. Travel With Your Mind
3. Out Of The Question
4. Painted Doll
5. Flower Lady And Her Assistant
6. Now A Man
7. A Thousand Shadows
8. Two Fingers Pointing On You
9. Where Is The Entrance Way To Play
10. Six Dreams
11. Fallin'
12. Chocolate River (Mono Mix)
13. Sad And Alone
14. The Wind Blows Your Hair (version 2)
15. Travel With Your Mind
16. Painted Doll
17. Flower Lady And Her Assistant
18. Now A Man
19. Two Fingers Pointing On You
20. Where Is The Entrance Way To Play
21. Six Dreams (Alt mix)
22. Fallin'
23. The Navy Swings
