David Lindley’s The Kaleidoscope is now widely considered as one of the most quintessential 1960s psychedelic bands, and their debut album Side Trips is a masterful album combining elements of psychedelia, rock, and folk music with stellar musicianship and excellent as well as diverse songwriting. Allmusic’s retrospective review praised nearly all of the individual songs and called the album “arguably the most diverse effort of 1967”. The mono mix of this album, which has never before appeared on CD and never been ripped due primarily to its scarcity, is completely different from the stereo mix which we are all familiar with, and by many accounts far superior. “Egyptian Gardens” has additional sound effects, “Please” is a completely different edit, “Pulsating Dream” is at a faster speed, and “Keep Your Mind Open” finally sounds like the mind-melting anti-war masterpiece it was written to be. The whole album is punchier, clearer, and trippier: like it was supposed to be. David Lindley was a master of many string instruments, which led to the Kaleidoscope’s dense musical structure and dynamic composition style. Wikipedia states: “The album has a raw, non-limited instrumental mentality, for each member played many instruments; for example, David Lindley played guitar, banjo, fiddle, and mandolin, and Solomon Feldthouse played saz, bouzouki, dobro, vina, oud, doumbek, dulcimer, fiddle, guitar, and vocals.” After the Kaleidoscope Lindley continued his career as a popular session