Out there in the digital dust bins of the interwebs, countless albums rest upon laurels made from assorted statements that amount to something like, “This record has it all – everything from psych to rock to funk and back again. And all on acid. YEAH!”

Pure nonsense, I intone from my ivory tower. There’s no such thing. And I maintain that even after taking a listen to the admittedly engaging Chico Magnetic Band long player issued in either 1969 or 1970 dependent upon what source you have your eyes affixed.

There is no shortage of genre hopping here. But what the band does – and it’s not including every conceivable approach to music – is figure out the fulcrum on which all these disparate musics swing and then work in that tiny sphere for just about a half an hour.

With Chico vocals, Bernard Monneri playing guitar, Alain Mazet plying bass strings and Patrick Garel knocking down the beat, the ensemble creates a stirring and surprising racket with such a diminutive line up.

Supposedly accounting for this outcome is in part due to the inclusion of Jean Pierre Massiera as producer. Perhaps unknown in this side of the Atlantic – and unknown to me prior to reading up on this particular ensemble – the producer is generally lauded for utilizing the studio as a supplemental player. Here, though, the Chico Magnetic Band really just comes off as a gutsy power trio enhanced by the adventurous nature of the French music scene with its myriad Eastern impulses as is evidenced by the closing few moments of “To Where I Belong.”

It’s not all exotic fair even as Chico yells, hollers, sings and grunts in some indeterminate confluence of French and English. Massiera’s impact on the recordings may well have come through his production of those vocals. There’s no mud to wade through, but between the volume of his backing band and whatever effects were levied atop his performance makes it sound as if he’s singing to listeners from his next door neighbor’s bathroom.

Wherever these sessions took place, there was unquestionably a synergistic quality to the performance with players topping on a dime and changing direction – “My Sorrow” – turning to spaced out funk jams ala George Clinton (even if it was off in the future a bit)  - “Pop Orbite” – or just raving up a monster rock track – “Explosion.”  

Experimental, yes. The proceedings do warrant exploration, but there’s no need to raise a fuss. Seriously.