Parliament: "Osmium"

Still quite possibly the weirdest, wildest Parliafunkadelicment trip of them all.  My eyes nearly bulged out of my sockets when I came across an OG pressing of this a couple months back, complete with the lyric sleeve insert intact.  I’m sure this LP went absolutely nowhere when it was first released on Invictus, as it is the very antithesis of commercial, and in fact has the potential to alienate even the most diehard and open-minded P-Funk fan.  George Clinton was really testing the waters and seeing what he could get away with on this record, from the faux-country of “My Automobile” and “Little Ole Country Boy” to the harpsichord-drenched hymn of “Oh Lord, Why Lord/Prayer” to the bagpipe breaks on “The Silent Boatman.”  The acidic sound of early Funkadelic is definitely present, especially in Eddie Hazel’s manic guitar leads, but it is set atop strange textures and grooves, like the psycho-billy of “Nothing Before Me But Thang” and the crazy-person rave-up of “I Call My Baby Pussycat.”  There are even songs that sound half-finished, such as “Put Love In Your Life” and “Funky Woman,” where it seems as though no-one ever bothered to go back and do any post-production editing, and rather just put the music out as it was, warts and all.  This scattershot, even bizarre, aesthetic is what endears the album to me, though, and it stands its own lonesome ground even in the P-Funk catalogue, which is pretty unique to begin with.