What is the name of the album that continued Brian's exploration of "party tracks"?
Since the recording of "Good Vibrations" in 1966, Wilson had established a new method of operation. Instead of working on whole songs with clear large-scale syntactical structures, Wilson limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time. Smiley Smile continued this approach. The album also continued Brian's exploration of "party tracks"—a form of music which includes the sounds of people shouting and making noises, as if at a party. Brian had enacted this approach with Beach Boys' Party! in 1965, thereby mixing that record's style with the modular composition method he devised for "Good Vibrations".
Most of Smiley Smile was recorded at Brian's improvised home studio in Bel Air from June 3 to July 14, 1967. The core instrumentation consisted of organ, honky-tonk piano, and electronic bass played by the Beach Boys themselves, rather than the session musicians employed in much of their previous work. Brian became obsessed with a three-tiered Baldwin organ during the album's recording, resulting in a more minimalist approach to the new arrangements. The organ gave the album its central timbre.  Most of the piano was played by Brian, and most of the bass was played by Carl. Tape manipulation was another prominent feature, with varispeed being applied to a few miscellaneous vocals. On "She's Goin' Bald", a new device called the Eltro Information Rate Changer was used to raise the pitch of the group's vocals without affecting the tempo.It was the first album for which production was credited to the entire group, instead of Brian alone. Dennis explained: "He wanted it that way. He said 'It's produced by the Beach Boys.'" When asked if Brian was "still the producer of Smiley Smile", Carl answered, "Most definitely." Brian acknowledged: "We had done about six months work on another thing, but we jumped and ended up doing the entire thing here at the house with an entirely different mood and approach than what we originally started out with." When questioned on why the band took the approach they did, he stated, "We just had a particular atmosphere that we were working in that inspired the particular kind of things that were on the album." Author Domenic Priore notes that when the Beach Boys were taken out of professional studios, "the discipline of the clock, rates and overtime disappeared". Mike Love, recalling how "She's Goin' Bald" was a song about fellatio, commented: "We were stoned out of our heads. We were laughing our asses off when we recorded that stuff."
Smiley Smile