Lida Husik debuted with the masterpiece Bozo (Shimmy Disc, 1992), an amalgam of everything she would explore in concentrated forms throughout the 1990s: the pop star, the political singer-songwriter, the hypnotic seamstress of reality and acidic unreality.
The hypnotic seamstress was exacerbated on Your Bag, creating one of the most subtly psychedelic albums of the 1990s. “Your Bag” walks with Alice in Wonderland in theme and child wonder with every instrument layered in simplicity but lyrically for an adult relationship. “Toy Surprise” swirls with Husik’s hypnotic and alluring vocals that get expanded with heavy guitar and wandering voices. “Whirlybird” digs deeper with Husik’s innocent instrumentation and alluring vocals. “Ship Going Down” is out of place being just a normal folk/rock song.
“Marcel” is the quintessential psychedelic track of Husik’s entire career. The soft strumming and nostalgic and sensual vocals paint a dream in the most lucid of realities setting up her chant “open your eyes and you will know, this couldn’t be all” slowly building and floating consciousness deeper into itself with 5 minutes of somewhat average jamming and sampled voices poking in and out. “Candy Store” is her ode to 1960s psychedelic pop of bands like United States of America. “The Match From Mars” is an 11 minute electronic dance track that rounds out the experience of Your Bag.
Husik would explore political songwriting on The Return of Red Emma, “indie” rock on Fly Stereophonic and Joy Ride, and mild psychedelia on Green Blue Fire, Faith in Space, and Mad Flavor, the latter working the best, playing her innocent psychedelia with the electronica template.
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