The album was allegedly recorded in a single session, featuring the band playing live with "The Familiar Ugly", which refers to the fifty-or-so friends of the band who provide the "Free Form Freak-Outs" tracks that appear between songs. They were instructed by the band to play whatever they pleased. To demonstrate, the liner notes by "General Fox" describe how "a young man made his music by striking two match sticks together... His girlfriend kept time by blowing in a pop bottle." Roky Erickson of 13th Floor Elevators plays organ throughout, and allegedly plays the solo on the album's first track, "Hurricane Fighter Plane". A recording purporting to be a demo which surfaced on the International Artists Records compilation partially refuted this. The "demo" of "Hurricane Fighter Plane" is identical to the take used on Parable, only minus the crossfades in and out of the preceding and subsequent "Free Form Freak-Outs". This suggests that the basic "song" tracks were first recorded by The Red Crayola, and then superimposed with the Familiar Ugly recording.
Music
While the songs themselves introduce Mayo Thompson's signature style, it is the inclusion of the "Free Form Freak-Outs" for which the album is best known. They are seen by many critics as a foreshadowing to the industrial music which surfaced in the 1970s. While marketed as a "psychedelic" album, the album also had a lot to do with modern 20th-century composers and the avant-garde in general. Thompson's lyrics, while seemingly fitting in with the often surreal tone of typical 1960s psychedelic lyrics, actually demonstrate a more literary and artistic approach than what was common in rock music of the time. On the other hand, AllMusic critic Richie Unterberger argues that "Hurricane Fighter Plane" is "one of the closest American approximations of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd". The most non-traditional and avant-garde of the six songs is the title track. An instrumental, it features nothing but a sparse and exotic-sounding percussion loop with minimal improvisation on top of it, building in intensity and then settling down over the course of about three minutes. This is not part of the "Free Form Freak-Outs", as it seems to be somewhat orchestrated. This track in particular foreshadows the blatantly minimalistic and non-commercial nature of their rejected second album, Coconut Hotel. Each of the songs bears a lengthy subtitle lifted directly from its own lyrics.
Reception
In its retrospective review, Pitchfork called the album "one of the most visionary album of the year". Trouser Press wrote that the album "boasts a more engaged intelligence than most of the era's aural acid baths". In 2011, it was included in the NME "The 100 Greatest Albums You've Never Heard" list.. It was chosen by Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT.
