Silver Apples - "Silver Apples/Contact"

Silver Apples were a duo hailing from NYC comprised of drummer Danny Taylor and a vocalist/"Simeon" player named, uh, Simeon. You see, according to the liner notes of this splendid reissue of the band's first two albums from 1968 and 69, respectively (the self-titled debut and its follow up, Contact), Simeon created an early synthesizer that was made up of "nine audio oscillators and eighty-six manual manual controls". Rhythm and lead oscillators were apparently played with the hands and elbows, while you'd better have some funky feet if you want to operate the the bass oscillators. Don't believe me? Buy the CD here and look at the carefully detailed diagrams in the booklet. It's got graphic representations of the Simeon's layout, as well as Taylor's imposing drum setup.

The truth of the matter is that while Simeon's choice of instruments--well, choice to invent his own instrument, really--makes these records pretty well ahead of the curve in terms of sonic innovation, it's Taylor's amazing drum work that raises the stakes. Silver Apples could have been a noisy, offbeat experimental group with far-out hippy dippy lyrics (and they were, believe me) but the amazing polyrhythmic force that is Danny Taylor made them worthy reference points for the sample-happy electronic artists of the then-future. By which, of course, I mean our present.

Anyway, I mentioned the lyrics were kinda lame but if you're not hooked right off the bat by the super-rad-tastic opening cut "Oscillations" (let's hear it for Truth in Advertising), then this probably isn't the kind of blog you ought to be reading and/or downloading files from. Actually, since I don't have evidence that more than two people ever read this blog, I apologize and retract that statement. You should keep reading this thing and never, ever stop.

Which reminds me, I've added a little tagline to my mission statement, something like "Updated Every Thursday". This is because I will ALWAYS, DEFINITELY update on Thursdays because that's my day off. That doesn't, however, mean that I will ONLY update on Thursdays (as you can tell simply by reading this post, which happens to have been written on Saturday morning). So please, if you read this on an even semi-regular basis, don't avoid checking for new files on other days because they WILL happen.

P.S. A Quick Guide to Today's File:
Tracks 1-9: Silver Apples
Tracks 10-18: Contact

P.P.S. If anyone's got The Pop Group's album Y and wants to share it with me, I promise I'll be your best friend.