This has always been one of my favorites. It zig-zags between hard rock and Beatlesque pop. Great with headphones too.
Another one of my soundtracks for journeys into my inner mind. @4:00 mark I saw God. I wept it was so incredible. True story.
Just a thought; After reading the initial post I’m wondering if most of the suggestions so far are from eras contrary (much earlier) to what seems to be contemporary for the OP or as intended; "Primal Scream's Screamadelica and Happy Mondays' Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches are classic examples"
Led Zeppelin II is incredible during my trips but to each their own. Definitely agree about the classical music though.
As others have mentioned, you really can't go wrong with... Hendrix - Electric Ladyland Hendrix - Axis Any classic Moody Blues album. Any Traffic album You do not want to listen to The Doors "Horse Latitudes" on mushrooms. At least that's what I've been told.
My favorite albums to trip to: Trio and Error (Trio) The Gospel According to the Men in Black (The Stranglers) Umma Gumma (Floyd) Burning from the Inside (Bauhaus)
Many have been mentioned but I've always gotten bang for my buck with: Electric Ladyland S.F Sorrow Strange Days Live Dead Forever Changes
Personally... If I like the album sober, I’ll love it on Lucy, no matter what. If it has a psychedelic element to it, great, but it still has to be music I like sober.
I went to college in the 90's so for me a possibly odd pick for a psychedelically appropriate record from that period is Seal's first album. The flow of that whole album. from a sort of urgent, questioning sense of movement to an extremely mellow sense of loving and acceptance by its end...I've long wondered if Seal intended the album to be more or less about the psychedelic experience. I'm also an advocate for Jon Anderson's solo album Olias of Sunhillow in this regard. It's overall a very light and magical/sparkly record with a sort of tribal rhythm underpinning its liquid alien synth sounds. It also builds up into a dark sort of "bad trip" climax but then bursts open into this heavenly space like an angelic herald accompanied by pipe organ, before going small and light into a wordlessly simple acoustic texture.
All I know is that I would NOT want to be tripping and listening to either of your recommendations. Not mellow enough.
I first indulged lysergically-speaking in 1980 at age 23 and it was a landmark experience for me, musically. I already was a huge fan of psychedelic music and had quite a few records ready to spin. One song I recall especially was the "Everybody's Been Burned" 45 by the Byrds...I was listening through headphones and the song was exquisite and seemed to last 15 minutes. I had picked up on "Forever Changes" by Love the previous year and it was a natural candidate for listening in an "enlightened state"...while listening to this LP it seemed I was fully understanding it for the first time and it was like taking a profound journey. From that day it has been my favorite album. Also listened to "Birthday" by the Association and "The Magic Garden" by the Fifth Dimension, as well as many more. It definitely was an experience that enhanced my enjoyment of music to a sublime level.
Another favorite for me is "The Fool" by Quicksilver Messenger Service" and Keith Jarrett's "Koln" LP.
Old-school trips: "Electric Music for the Mind and Body" "My world is spinnin' yeah, just got to slow it down Oh, yes you know I've sure got to slow it down."
“Psychedelic music is music you listen to when you’re psychedelic. I think that's what its real definition should be because subjectively I don't think that there really is any psychedelic music, unless except in the classical sense of music which is designed to expand consciousness. If you use that as a definition of psychedelic music, then I would say that Indian music was definitely that, and that certain kinds of Tibetan music are too." -Jerry “Captain Trips” Garcia
I once tried watching the Wizard of Oz movie while playing PF’s Dark Side of the Moon with a buddy of mine. We were properly medicated, but despite the occasional semi-congruence between the movie and the album, we weren’t able to make the connection between the two. Perhaps we weren’t medicated enough, but at the time, there were a lot of people convinced that there was a connection.
Santana Abraxas is my fondest memory of listening to an album under the influence of psychedelics. It's really an amazing album and perfect for this thread. Maybe the best of all is the opening track Singing Winds, Crying Beasts. It opens with a door creek not unlike the one heard when Dorothy leaves Kansas, and its followed by swelling wind chimes and prehistoric guitars sounds fading in and out before the song segues perfectly into the organ riff for Black Magic Woman. I won't go through every song but there are some really beautiful instrumentals and a few hit rockers, some suit the mood better than others but the album flows well. And Santana's got such a sweet beautiful guitar sound combined with the organ and the latin rhythms are... really trippy. I do also recall seeing a visual representation of Greg Rollie's organ solo in Oye Como Va
This got me thinking, I haven’t tripped in more than 40 years, but I can’t ever remember listening to music while tripping. I always did it out in nature. That’s probably the best environment.
This is a nice prelude to an old-fashioned psychedelic experience. I would also suggest any of the ragas by Ravi Shankar from the '60s.
