The Mops - Psychedelic Sounds In Japan LP. The Mops are the undisputed kings of the late sixties/early seventies Japanese rock scene; all of their discs are marked by spectacular singing, playing, arranging, and songwriting. Yet it is their first album, "Psychedelic Sounds in Japan," that gets the most praise—rightly so, as it's a marked deviation from most of the other music making going on at the time in Japan, with its sharply stripped-down sound and emphasis on musicianship, songwriting, and atmosphere over production values. As such, it's one of the few Japanese rock albums that has an outside-of-Japan following, and it's frequently name-checked on lists of classic obscure albums. But of course, this means that original LP copies of the album trade for hilarious amounts!  If you've never heard this album, and you're a fan of tightly written songs, great playing, totally incomprehensible lyrics and a smattering of surprising covers (‘The Letter,’ ‘Light My Fire,’ ‘Somebody to Love’), this one’s for you. And how can anyone live without the classic ‘I Am Just a Mops’—I mean, aren’t we all?! Vinyl reissue! (m-/m-)