Painstakingly assembled and selfproduced, this was the debut album from one of rock’s oddest couples, Hamilton Wesley Watt Jr and William J Lincoln. After a mammoth five years in the making, this comprehensively baffling kaleidoscope of influences and ingredients was finally released with little or no promotion in November 1969.
Recorded in locations as far afield as Hollywood, Nashville and London’s Pye Studios, and touching base en route with influences running all the way from 13th Floor Elevators to the Bee Gees, the many and varied moods of this extraordinary album anticipate the stylistic and atmospheric blends of landmarks as diverse as Abbey Road and the psychedelic country of The Notorious Byrd Brothers. There are at the very least three distinctly schizophrenic strands running through the album: the lush symphonic arrangements, the banjo-driven country interludes and the excursions into psych-rock, with the whole made even more surreal by the liberal ransacking of a sound effects library. Who knows what fate might have befallen A Gift From Euphoria had Apple taken up their option to release it before Watt and Lincoln signed with Capitol. File under ‘C’ for ‘curio’. Or should that be ‘A’ for ‘audacious’?
