Record Rebound: Silver Apples vinyl reissue for 55th anniversary
When it comes to musical innovation, we like to throw a familiar set of names around in conversation. On many an occasion, I have heard people laud The Beatles for their studio experimentation on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and psychedelic lyrics in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Without discrediting the Fab Four, outside the gravity of pop music, numerous lesser-known acts were tinkering with the settings and forcing the vanguard in the late 1960s. One such project was Silver Apples, one of the earliest electronic rock outfits, formed by Simeon and Danny Taylor.
On Friday, June 16th, the duo’s cutting-edge debut album of June 1968 is reissued on coloured vinyl by Picadilly Records to celebrate its 55th anniversary. This occasion also marks Far Out’s inaugural ‘Record Rebound’ feature, wherein we’ll keep you updated on reissues of unmissable classic records in tandem with a deep dive into the masterworks.
Within a year of forming, early synth-rover Simeon and drummer Taylor set about recording their debut album. According to the original LP’s liner notes, Simeon played a home-assembled electronic instrument called The Simeon, consisting of “nine audio oscillators and eighty-six manual controls… The lead and rhythm oscillators are played with the hands, elbows and knees and the bass oscillators are played with the feet.”
Considering its moment in music history, Silver Apples is an unmitigated marvel of experimental art. Not only did the pair record this array of intriguing hums, beeps and beats, but they marshalled them into a relatively accessible package befitting of the concurrent psychedelic rock wave. To give the nine tracks a structure remotely in keeping with contemporary pop music, the oscillators were joined by traditional drum beats, flute passages and vocals.
Despite these elements that bind the record to contemporary sounds, it understandably alienated many audiences at the time. After all, they had only just come to terms with John Lennon’s “tangerine trees and marmalade skies”. Incidentally, albeit not totally surprising, Lennon was among the notable proponents of Silver Apples’ pioneering debut album.
The album begins with its defining moment and perhaps Silver Apples’ best-known track, the aptly titled ‘Oscillations’. The throbbing space-age sound effects are met with befitting psychedelic lyrics: Oscillations, oscillations/ Electronic evocations of sound’s reality/ Spinning, magnetic fluctuations/ Waves of wave configurations/ That dance between the poles off sound/ And bind my world to soul”.
‘Oscillations’ sets a precedent for the album, but as the record unfolds, the mechanical sounds of ‘Lovefingers’ and eerie flute seasoning of ‘Seagarden Serenades’ further attest to the duo’s direct influence on the Krautrock movement, as popularised by CAN and Kraftwerk in the ’70s. Even the seeds of Suicide, the progressive electro-punk outfit formed by Alan Vega and Martin Rev, can be heard in bleak, oppressive tracks like ‘Dust’ and ‘Dancing Gods’.
To say Silver Apples were ahead of the game would appear an understatement. Almost six decades later, these tracks appear to have oozed from some portal to the future. “It never sounded weird to me,” Coxe reflected in a 2019 interview with The Guardian. “We weren’t intending to be futuristic. We were just kids playing and making pop music.” The humble innovator sadly died a year later, aged 82.
Silver Apples’ groundbreaking debut and its equally compelling yet underappreciated 1969 follow-up, Contact, are now immortalised in history and the subsequent artists and masterworks they inspired. Silver Apples reunited in 1996 after a 20-year hiatus to find an industry of peers far more accepting of their style and legacy. Spiritualized, Blur, and Portishead were among the notable contemporary acts to sing their praises.
Portishead’s Adrian Utley, a Silver Apples fan of many years, introduced his bandmate Geoff Barrow to the band in the ’90s. “He said: ‘You have to check this out’,” Geoff Barrow remembered per The Guardian. “And I was like: ‘Fucking hell, this is amazing.’ For people like us, they are the perfect band. Silver Apples were a pathway to Portishead. They should definitely be up there with the pioneers of electronic music.”
In 2007, the Bristol-based trip-hop trio invited Simeon and his current Silver Apples lineup to perform at their curated ATP festival. The following year, Portishead released their critically praised studio album Third, featuring ‘We Carry On’, a homage to the unmistakable Silver Apples sound.
Listen to Silver Apples below. If you like what you hear and fancy adding this slice of history to your record collection, the new Picadilly Records pressing is available for pre-order here.
