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Features

Six Of The Best Stoner Anthems

Sep 6, 2011
-
Posted by SOURCE Writers

PRIMAL SCREAM
‘Higher Than The Sun’

Given the band’s non-prescription propensity at the time, this could actually be a paean to any number of uppers, downers or hanging-arounders as it announces “I’ve glimpsed, I have tasted, fantastical places”. But any song presented as a ‘dub symphony in two parts’, as it re-appears later on ‘Screamadelica’, is going to suggest more supine appreciation than its more up-tempo album companions. Production by The Orb, purveyors of some fairly spliffy 90s moments themselves, seals the stoner deal. A lengthy and classic highlight of a truly epoch-making album. (NC)

BOMB THE BASS
‘Bug Powder Dust (La Funk Mob Remix)’

We’re not sure precisely when La Funk Mob got their hands on ‘Bug Powder Dust’ [er, on the 1994 single which also included a great Kruder & Dorfmeister mix – Ed], an unremarkable spurt of rap rock from Bomb The Bass’s ‘Clear’ album, but it was the sound of countless afternoons on beds and hills, staring into hazy abysses. Justin Warfield’s mumbo-jumbo lyrics (there’s at least one website devoted to deciphering them) are based on William S Burroughs’ ‘Naked Lunch’, replete with endless drug references. And as a zoned-out hip hop reworking, it’s a tune in its own right. (BM)

PINK FLOYD
‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’

Well, we couldn’t not put it in, right? You’ll notice that it’s the only entire album on the list – this simply isn’t a record you can pull tracks out of willy nilly. Even the band knew this; when we saw them at Earls Court in 1994 they did a bunch of new stuff and old hits, then came back on and played this. The whole album from start to finish, with lights and lasers and strobes and dry ice and an actual crashing plane. We watched on from our regal box, with some particularly potent cannabis oil as we recall. (NC)

TRICKY
‘Overcome’

In typical slacker behaviour ‘Overcome’ is a remake of Massive Attack’s ‘Karmacoma’ from the year before that Tricky hadn’t got around to writing the lyrics for. But this outclasses his former bandmates’ production with smoker-friendly, low-slung beats and bedroom-sultriness (the ‘Maxinquaye’ LP was the only thing that got stoners off the sofa and into bed in 1995). Multi-layered – letting your head wander off – there’s a fug of smoke drifting through the whole thing even before teenage singer Martina drops a reference to “Jamaica aroma”. (JK)

JEHST
‘Return Of The Drifter’

This very British rapper brought the gritty real life of a London hip hop chap to the mainstream in 2002 with ‘Return of the Drifter,’ with witty lines about “living with benefit cheats and no-hopers/deadbeats who sleep on their sofas” and “bunnin’ zoots of skunk” enlivening many a smoky bedroom. Designed to make you nod throughout and really, like, get what he’s saying man, this track embodies the beatification of setting the world to rights after a few more cans of lager. (JMM)

CYPRESS HILL
‘Hits From The Bong’

This ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’-sampling, ‘Black Sunday’ album track is less of a song and more a public information advert for weed smokers. “There’s water inside don’t spill it/It smells like shit on the carpet,” B-Real suggests in a nasal voice that we don’t remember grating so intensely while we were baked. Pretty lazy lyric writing but it persuaded three million teenage boys to finally get their shit together and get down the record shop with money they’d normally have spent on a ‘teenth. (JK)

More Six Of The Best: Click Here6best

WORDS BY NICK COQUET, BEN MILLER, JAMES KENDALL, JESSICA MARSHALL MCHATTIE

Six Of The Best
Sep 6, 2011
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