Research - Historical Context

What is ecstasy? 

Ecstasy is a 'phychedelic' stimulant drug usually sold in a tablet form, but is sometimes dabbed on to gums or snorted in its powder form. it was also known as 'MDMA' or 'Crystal'.

How does it make you feel?

Ecstasy can make you feel alert, affectionate and chatty, and it can make music and colours seem more intense. taking ecstasy can also cause aniecty, confusion and paranoia and even psychosis. it is classed as a A class drug and can be very dangerous. 


What does acid do to you?

A good trip can make users feel relaxed and happy, with pleasants hallucinations. a bad trip can make you feel agitated and confused, with unpleasant and scary hallucinations. how the trip goes can affect by your surroundings, who your with and how comfortable and safe you feel. you're most ikey to have a bad trip it can also have other effects: 


A trip can appear to involve speeding up and slowing down of time and movements, while colour, sound and objects can get distorted. Users experience hallucinations (seeing and/or hearing things that aren’t there).

• LSD can also make you feel tired, anxious, panicky and depressed. LSD can cause unpleasant, frightening or scary hallucinations and distortions of your senses – and these effects can be quite unpredictable.Trips can feed off your imagination and may heighten a mood you're already in. So if you’re in a bad mood, feeling worried or depressed, LSD may just make these feelings worse.

The 60's and 70's was a popular era for the surface of drug culture within music. The 'hippie' subculture that formed at this time were known and remembered for their free love ethos and their distinct style. However, there was a certain other defining characteristic that they were known for that weren’t of such positive connotations.

"Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music inspired by or attempting to replicate the mind-altering experiences brought on by psychoactive drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, salvia divinorum, and especially LSD. There are also other forms of psychedelic music that started from the same roots and diverged from the prevalent rock style into electronic music."

This type of sub-culture was recognised through the artwork on many bands' album covers and through their song lyrics, an example of this is 'With a little help from my friends' by the Beatles:

Taking inspiration and elements from this psychedelic rock era, through our artist 'Travis Scott' these visuals will be drawn out and presented within our music video and album cover in a similar but subtle way to the bands of the 60's and 70's shown above. 

Many psychedelic rock and pop songs feature themes of childhood, nostalgia, and longing for lost innocence. The surrealistic creations of British author Lewis Carroll were an especially strong influence on the genre. The story of 'Alice in Wonderland' was originally created by Lewis Carroll and many people suspected it endured themes of hallucinogenic and drugs.

The widespread use of opium during the Victorian period may have influenced or been reflected in Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. Mind altering experiences resulting from narcotics relate nicely to some of the detailed descriptions in the Alice books, such as the growing and shrinking and the image of the caterpillar smoking the hookah.

"The complex dream atmosphere which Alice lives through can easily be compared to a mind-altering drug experience. The idea of eating a mushroom or drinking from a bottle that causes one to feel altered in some way parallels drug experience as well."

 In our group we have decided, taking elements from the well known movie and novel, that our album title should be called 'Travis in Wonderland'. This then targets an audience beyond our original. At the beginning of our chosen song, 'Hell of a Night', our idea is to intertextualise a clip from the movie (35 seconds) before the vocals come in. At this point in the song, it samples the soundtrack 'Fleet Foxes' by Oliver James (country/folk genre) but it is chopped and sped up. It sounds like a little girl singing - this may be 'Alice' In Wonderland.