Oscillations From Another Dimension: Silver Apples

Silver Apples: Oscillations, Seagreen Serenades and Lovefingers
From: Silver Apples [Kapp Records, 1968]

Late to the party once again, it slipped my mind that Portishead's extraordinary new album, Third, was released while I was on a break. I was one of the many who had assumed the band's time had come and gone and was not exactly over ecstatic about the revival of a trip hop group but, if you haven't heard this yet, I can only give my strongest endorsement to check it out - blows all preconceptions out of the water.

Anyway, if you have seen any of the press around the album then the band name Silver Apples will no doubt have cropped up a couple of hundred times. An obvious influence on some of Portishead's new material, the constant hip name checking will hopefully lead to a wider interest in this ground breaking duo's work.

Using a 1940's oscillator the two band members, the impressively named Simeon Coxe III and the less impressively named Danny Taylor, crafted an orchestra of pedals and keys to create music that was less ahead of it's time, more beamed from another universe. Forty years after the release of their debut album the group still sound pretty much unlike anything else out there and thankfully these days you can pick up their first two albums pretty cheap on reissue.

Oscillations, a track that lives up to it's title is the one most recognisably referenced on Third with it's relentless bass drums and electronic squeaks offset by Simeon's slightly ethereal voice.

Seagreen Serenades highlights the beauty that the band crafted from these ancient instruments as the melodic electronica interacts with what sounds like a recorder, the bass relentlessly throbbing underneath.

I also just had to include Lovefingers for that epic break that kicks off the track, the whole percussion on the track making it hard to believe it's a good forty years old.

Understandably widely ignored on their release the band experienced a revival of sorts after bootleg releases of their two albums in the mid nineties leading to new albums plus the release of their original third album The Garden. Danny Taylor has now sadly passed away but Simeon is still going strong touring the country and you can find more about what he's up to on his official website.

Muxtapes: EarFuzz discovers Web 2.0

EarFuzz Junior Side A

EarFuzz Junior Side B

It's like a record stuck on loop but apologies again for the break in posting. I've been on holiday the last week and a bit and actually spent time away from both my music and the computer during this period. After the initial withdrawal symptons it was actually pretty pretty good.

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to trawl through the dusty crates yet but it's always nice to go into the weekend with some music and noticed Oliver talking about this Muxtapes site over at Soul Sides. Funnily enough, I recently put together a mix CD for one of my girlfriend's friends whose only request was that it needed to be the kind of stuff that got played round ours after a night out plus something that would fit with the new and very welcome sunshine hitting British shores. So, job done, and with the CD sitting there it seemed logical to put it up on muxtapes to supply some summer tunes while I sort out more posts.

I've had to split the CD into two tapes to fit on the site which mindblowingly are titled Earfuzz Junior Side A and EarFuzz Junior Side B. There's nothing extravagantly rare or unheard of on there and it was actually quite refreshing to put together something where overwhelmingly common (Bobby Byrd) could sit alongside less well known tunes like Alice Clark. I'll probably put together something more along the lines of Soulsides sneak preview collection in the coming month but sometimes, to paraphrase Liberace, it's nice to return to the classics.

Have a good weekend anyway and I'll be back with the dustier Mp3s next week.