The lone album by
the Id, 1967's
The Inner Sounds of the Id, came together when producer
Arnold Sukonick decided to make a concept album centered around Freud's notion of the Id. He gathered up a tightknit crew of studio vets who included guitarist
Jerry Cole and bassist
Glenn Cass and set them loose to come up with songs. What they came back with doesn't have much to do with the Id, but it does have all sorts of garage rock toughness, psychedelic frippery, and left-field weirdness to make it a prime example of late-'60s indulgence. While most of the songs could probably have had a home on the soundtrack of a biker movie, or in the case of the pounding dance track "The Rake," a particularly lurid nightclub scene, some have a nice bit of folk-rock jangle,
Stones-y sneer, almost bubblegummy hooks ("Baby Eyes") or, in many cases, enough sitar to make
Ravi Shankar blush. It's a weird balance of tones and subgenres, one that makes space for both the bratty put downs of "Just Who" and the theatrical Baroque punk of "Butterfly Kiss." Not to mention the epic title track which meanders through many long minutes of sitar picking and off-beat jamming with over-the-top narration by Shindig! producer
Jack Good layered on top before breaking out into a reprise of "The Rake." It's a truly silly, totally charming mock psychedelic excursion that's somehow topped in the weirdness stakes by the album's shining moment of brilliance "Boil the Kettle, Mother." This gem is a biker rock rave-up with
Cole shredding his fingers and speaker cones as the vocalist delivers a devilishly hissy, wacky incantation. It's a wonder that song hasn't shown up more on garage rock or psychedelic compilations over the years as it has more pizazz than 99-percent of the songs that can traditionally be found there. Perhaps it wasn't in demand due to the reputation the album seems to have collected over the years as some kind of psychedelic cash-in instead of the obscuro classic it is. Sure, it was a cynical move by the producer to make hay while the psychedelic sun shined, and
the Id aren't really a band, but more a diversion for the studio cats. The results bely their origins and all that should be judged in the end is the music, and
The Inner Sounds of the Id is a gas from beginning to end. [In 2023,
Sundazed reissued the album with a sparkling new remastering and a set of bonus tracks that included an alternate version of "The Rake" and instrumental versions of many of the tracks that let the listener get a better feel for how inventive and weird some of the music was. It adds extra value to one of the odder, more interesting curios of the psychedelic era.] ~ Tim Sendra
