Safe As Milk is the studio debut from Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band. These are the psychedelic raspers that took the Delta Blues into the garage scene.

Captain Beefheart was the nom de plume of Californian multi-instrumentalist and surrealist, Don Van Vliet. We had quite a fun time reading into why specifically he was named ‘Beefheart’, with multiple compelling stories (many of which Van Vliet himself relayed with unflinching authenticity) to include that he had "beef in his heart" against society, or that friend and collaborator Frank Zappa bestowed it upon him, and most frequently, that it had something to do with a perverted uncle named Alan. Journalist Lester Bangs dubbed Van Vliet the “only true dadaist in rock”.

A counter culture icon and a genuine creative visionary, Van Vliet was also something of a tyrant, and his demanding work ethic created a revolving door of personnel over the following decade. The Safe As Milk band included Alex St. Clair on guitar, Jerry Handley on bass and John French at the drums, all three of whom would remain involved in various ways over the next few years, including on the equally off-kilter, seminal albums Strictly Personal and Trout Mask Replica. Safe As Milk also included the presence of young blues virtuoso Ry Cooder on guitar/slide and arrangements, adding desert-heat and slow-evolving drawls, especially as the album slows down its pace and goes really out there!

For the deep-cut fact fans, the album also includes a little flash from blues musician Taj Mahal, who would collaborate many times over the years with Ry Cooder.

"Safe as Milk remains a towering achievement: an avant-garde pop masterpiece from the time when they had only just started to make them.”
- Jon Savage

Aside from its experimental weirdness, Safe As Milk is a remarkable fusion of Delta blues, garage-rock energy, acid-rock pageantry, surreal lyricism, howling vocals and some gorgeous gestures towards folk and R&B too. ‘I’m Glad’ is three minutes of sublime Blue-eyed soul and is as full of sunny melancholy as anything produced at the time. Starting with ‘the reference tone’, 'Yellow Brick Road' is a proper hallucinogenic pop nugget from the period that invented pop nuggets. With howling harmonica and clattering guitar tones, there is so much swagger across the album, any moment of it in isolation really does sound rich and utterly fantastic. Although it would never make critical or commercial waves on its release, its reputation and influence has grown over the last fifty plus years and it is now rightly regarded as a work of huge importance. Safe As Milk is arguably the most accessible album Van Vliet and the band would ever make, capturing raw grooves, pop sensibility, hippy idealism and deranged humour on tape.

Both a milestone in avant-garde music making, and a raw and stomping stereo work-out.