Hapshash & The Coloured Coat were protagonists of London's psychedelic boom of 1967. Founded by art students Michael English and Nigel Weymouth, who became famous at the peak of the British psychedelic movement for their colorful and surreal posters, they released the album Featuring The Human Host And The Heavy Metal Kids (Minit, 1967), a chaotic assembly of free-form jamming and percussions (the side-long instrumental Empires Of The Sun, A Mind Blown Is A Mind Shown), muezzin-like chanting (The New Messiah Coming 1985), and hippie melodies (H-O-P-P-Why?). The album featured the entire line-up of the Art (Mike Harrison, Greg Ridley, Mike Kellie, Luther Grosvenor) but the main contributions came from the producer, Guy Stevens, a veritable George Martin of the poor.

Western Flyer (Imperial, 1969), with Tony McPhee and Mike Batt, was an essay in studio arrangement: the material (all covers) is distorted and disfigured by the wealth of electronic effects.