s Down on Broadway (1974), and Tarkus (1971), respectively. When the punk revolution ushered in a return to faster and louder rock in the late 1970s, echoes of psychedelia could be heard in artier groups such as Pere Ubu (The Modern Dance; 1978), Wire (Chairs Missing; 1978), and the Feelies (Crazy Rhythms; 1980). In one of its handiest definitions, David Thomas of Pere Ubu called head rock "the cinematic music of the imagination." Like many musicians, he maintained that it was more of an approach toward making and recording music than a style of rock rooted in drugs or in any one era. Of course, there were also the psychedelic revival bands, and they approached the genre with a much more literal devotion. Listening to such admittedly beguiling albums as Sixteen Tambourines (1982) by the Three O'Clock and Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (1983) by the Rain Parade (both members of the "paisley underground" scene of mid-1980s Los Angeles), as well as Wonder Wonderful Wonderland (1985) by Plasticland of Milwaukee, Wis., U.S., Auntie Winnie Album (1989) by England's Bevis Frond, and the work of British cult heroes Porcupine Tree, you'd be hard-pressed to prove they weren't recorded during the Summer of Love. In the early 1990s, the explosion of techno and electronic dance music ushered in a new psychedelic rock based on a new psychedelic drug: MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), or "ecstasy." Young listeners consumed the substance (or acted as if they had) while grooving to the otherworldly throb of bass-heavy music at late-night warehouse parties called "raves"--'90s updates of '60s happenings like the famed Acid Tests thrown by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Techno artists such as the Orb (U.F.Orb; 1992), Plastikman (Sheet One; 1994), Orbital (Snivilisation; 1994), and the Aphex Twin (Selected Ambient Works Volume II; 1994) further expanded the acid rock palette with inspired experimentation on the latest technology, including digita...
