I had never heard of Silver Apples until this was the featured album on Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone. I hadn't heard anything like it, and certainly felt it sounded more like early eighties electronica than 1968
Slight cheat here, the version I bought on CD has Silver Apples' first two albums on it, but I'm only looking at the debut here.
Silver Apples were a duo from New York - Simeon playing 'The Simeon', a complex array of oscillators, with Dan Taylor on drums - making simple yet haunting music. Opening with an electronic rise through the frequencies before the percussion kicks in, Oscillations sounds and feels like a manifesto, a driving electronic pulse setting out the band's wares. Seagreen Serenades carries on this beat, with a more tuneful, even melodic piece, and a similar mood continues in Lovefingers, while Program incorporates early sampling, starting with a fairground accordion, before the duo kick in, in between samples of Vivaldi's Autumn. The first half ends with Velvet Cave, with some interesting noises, but not as strong a song as those before it. Whirly-Bird opens the second half, a cheery song, with a hypnotic central theme, while Dust is darker, more abstract, a semi-spoken lyric over atmospheric noises. Dancing Gods is the longest track on the album, and the least interesting, a monotone where the drum dominates, extending for nearly six minutes and final song Misty Mountain wraps up brightly, with both Simeon and Dan making their presence felt on an interesting ending.
While there might be much better known and more accomplished electronic artists since Silver Apples, this pioneering album still stands up so well.
4* - A fine debut from pioneers of 1960s electronic music
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