Practically every pop genre goes through an era about which people later say that “everything seemed possible.” Thai Beat a Go-Go brings us closer to feeling just how strong the wind was blowing from the west in the wake of the Beatles'ascendancy.

Half the songs here are either covers or plagiarisms, though neither concept adequately describes what's really going on here — cultural appropriation is a pretty complex process. The best numbers are those whose points of origin can't quite be pigeonholed — the gloriously spooky “Boongatanyon” by the Son of P.M., or the utterly essential and quite crazed smokey-lounge creep of “Phom Rak Khun Tching Tching” by the Viking Band. You'll hear traces of ? and the Mysterians and Booker T., but also of the Seeds, the Count 5 and of untold unknown sources.

Audibly recorded on modest equipment, the singles and B-sides on Thai Beat a Go Go show us how else '60s pop might have sounded: the bass drum tends to thump harder, the cymbals to crash bigger and the vocals are all over the place. A bracing sense of newness hangs over everything like fog, and that's what makes these songs worth hearing long after the… read more »