SMITH, CRAIG/MAITREYA KALI - Apache / Inca

"The psychedelic masterpiece nobody heard -- First ever official, authorized release of psychedelic mega-rarity. After a suffering an LSD-induced mental breakdown, Los Angeles-based songwriter Craig Smith renamed himself Maitreya Kali and custom-pressed Apache / Inca, a double-LP documenting his musical, personal, and spiritual journey. His message to the world, encoded on the album jackets in rambling, quasi-mystical Messianic verse, was urgent, desperate, delusional, and disturbing. Recorded between 1967 and 1971, the music tells a different story. Achingly beautiful, haunting acoustic folk songs; luminescent psychedelic folk-rock; eerie, off-kilter acid rock; fragments; field recordings -- all meticulously woven into a magical, mesmerizing whole. Apache / Inca is an extraordinary work. Not the dark, self-indulgent ramblings of a cracked Messiah, but a thoughtfully-crafted collection of work by a singer and songwriter of remarkable depth and talent whose world was falling apart. Soo