70 Years of Sunshine is a collection of music celebrating the accidental discovery of LSD by Swiss chemist Alfred Hofmann in the late 1930's, which was of course a momentous event with immeasurable consequences. What would our world be like without LSD, and to a lesser extent the art world in general? As this is an extension of the earlier compilation '50 Years of...', it carries the spirit of the former and is comprised of two discs labeled "Ascent" and Descent" (hopefully putting on the "wrong" disc during your journey won't incite a bad trip). I wonder: is this music made by people on acid, or for people on acid, or both? Maybe I am missing the point. Anyway, I can definitely say you don't have to be tripping to appreciate the sounds because this music induces psychedelic sensations on its own.

These tracks mostly veer between droned-out excursions and electronic-based freakouts.. "Ascent" opens with Acid Mothers Temple's Kawabata Makoto's "Lost Milkyway" which is all bliss-ed out strumming and yearning vocals. For me the most interesting songs are those oriented towards electronic, most of them being constructed on fragmented samples and disjointed time. Lord Tang's "Blue Sunshine" fits perfectly into that description, as the sound of a man's voice is gradually truncated as to change all meaning as it floats over heavy beats. Many of the tracks are studies in repetition and clever mixing, with tidbits of ear candy floating around the stereo field.

I am fantastically un-aware of many of these artists, and a bit surprised there are not more overtly "psychedelic" sounding bands recalling that first era of widespread LSD consumption. The acid-fried blues, proto-new age, and spiritual jazz that helped point the direction to expanded consciousness in the late 60's are largely missing here. Nevertheless much of the music included feels timeless in its own way. An interesting collection of music that gets the synapses firing and exists outside of the everyday world, jumping through the wormholes of millennia and offering a window inward to our collective consciousness.