Lightstorm - Creation

By this time, you’d think the grain had been separated from the chaff in the reissue market, however with greater internet exposure to outsider music, and all the retrospective justification of modern psychedelic music, our ears are now more sympathetic to weird and unearthly music.

On one view, Lightstorm’s Johnima and Kalassu Wintergate were dogmatic new-age tripsters, channelling through their musical prism the dubious spirituality of avatar, Sathya Sai Baba; on another view they were fine proponents of psychedelic folk and the new-wave.

Creation is a compilation of two albums released by the couple in 1977 and 1980, Creation Earth: Who Am I (released as ‘One’) and 33 1/3 respectively. The first of those albums explores territory shared with bands such as Pentangle, Fotheringay or Fairport Convention, and the second, of far greater interest for partisans of guitar rock, embraces the music of the new wave, post-punk and rock. Creation segues from one stylistic approach to the other, reflecting the variable, but not internally inconsistent musical trajectory of Lightstorm.

Contrast the lyric from the song ‘Creation’ - "creation’s like a movie scene/reflected on a big white screen/the screen is called God’s spirit love/the one creation’s made above/and our love is the story scene/superimposed upon the screen",  with the lyric from psychedelic wonder track ‘Missionary is Impossible’ – "sometimes they get you through the backdoor/sometimes they get you from the front…but I’m never bored / I find that missionary is impossible / ‘Cause I just can’t cop the feel" The self-imposed earnestness of the former, and the self-effacing parody of the latter, the tinkling harp and gentle camber of the former, the glammed up fuzz-rock of the latter. Tells you all you need to know about Lightstorm. The ‘God Bless America’ chorus at the close of ‘Missionary is Impossible’ is hilarious, the ultimate in cultural utopianism.

Clearly there was more than grenadine in their Slippery Nipple, because by 1982 the Wintergates were directing a gory light porn slasher-flick called Boardinghouse, being one of the first to adopt the hand-held video ‘dogme’ technique, later adopted with more a determined soberness by the Danish. The movie was a cult success within the realm of truly awful filmmaking.

Perhaps Creation is a marginal release, but it’s still one that oozes nostalgia, and uses humour and positivity as central devices.