What we have right here, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the great overlooked masterpieces of the 90s American rock underground. A strange brew of dirty punk rock, omnivorous pan-globalism, warped folk, exploitation movie soundtrack and transcendental psychedelia, this is Music so “outside” it doesn't even fit into the “outsider music” category. The mask-wearing trio of freaks known as the Sun City Girls (all men by the way) had already been releasing documents of their bizarre (and probably hallucinogenically assisted) flights of fancy since the mid 80s, the best of which is probably the Fugs-esque anarchic vulgarity of “Horse Cock Phepner.” But I feel like “Torch of the Mystics” from 1990 is the first time (and one of the few times) Richard Bishop, Alan Bishop and Charles Gocher took a serious stab at making something like a “real album.”
The first four tracks (side A of the LP) showcase the band channeling Middle Eastern influences through the medium of lo-fi guitar/bass/drums garage punk. There's some stunning and highly original axework from Richard Bishop to be heard on here (check out his flurries of notes on “Esoterica of Abyssinia”) as well as Alan Bishop's patented faux-arabic glossolalia on “Tarmac.” But the real highlight is “Space Prophet Dogon.” Driven by an Indian-sounding guitar riff played with the kind of huge, wide open fuzz tone that can't help but conjure images of oceans and/or deserts, it's a 7-minute psychedelic journey through the nether regions of human consciousness with Alan Bishop's strange high-pitched muezzin-like vocal acting as a guide.
On the 7 shorter songs on side B the Girls largely ditch the electric instruments in favor of acoustic ones. After the cosmic of “Space Prophet Dogon,” we're treated to a surprisingly straight-faced (by SCG standards) Morricone-style cover of Bolivian folk band Los Kjarkas' hit “Llorando Se Fue,” retitled “The Shining Path.” A simple but effective of combination of acoustic guitars, wood block percussion and ghostly whistling. “The Flower” is a psych folk song with droning, incantation-ike vocals and English lyrics, “Radar 1941” is an honest-to-the-gods surf instrumental and “Papa Legba” is what the Blues would sound like if it had been invented in the streets of Bangkok rather than the Mississippi Delta. “Cafe Batik” creates more mystical moods but is slightly hurt by the jokey castrate falsetto. “Burial In The Sky” fittingly closes the album with a glimpse of the noisier improv side of the Sun City Girls.
While the acoustic side contains some excellent material, it doesn't feel quite as fresh now that “freak folk” has become an established genre in the “indie world.” It's the four electric pieces on first side, seemingly effortlessly combinations of “rocking out” and exploring uncharted territory, that continue to impress.
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