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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This wonderful budget-priced c.d from the late 1990's collects the first two albums from cult-act Silver Apples, taking in their eponymous debut from 1968 and follow-up 'Contact' from the following year. I never really heard of Silver Apples until I read about them in an interview in the booklet of a reissue of Suicide's first LP. They have also been namechecked by people such as Spacemen 3, Stereolab & Sonic Youth...
Silver Apples were absolute pioneers- the band itself was reduced to just two members, so had to drop the conventional element to their band and think of something new. The something new was an experimental use of oscillators and proto-sampling that puts Silver Apples at the forefront of avant-garde and proto-electronica. It's true that without the oscillators etc, Silver Apples have a vocal-style not unlike many bands of the era (e.g. Love, Chocolate Watch Band, Moby Grape), the lyrics are mostly written by a poet or two (making them very much of their time) & part of their sound does feel dated...(part of their sound could be related to any band on 'Nuggets'- some of it may even remind you of Jim Morrison's poetic musings. 'Dust' may even remind you of 'Little Britain' !).
As part of their sound still sounds like a future waiting to happen - Taylor (who has recently died, sadly) offering rythms around the array of oscillating-sounds offered up by the Simeon. The songs as such rely more on being drones and rhythms with added vocals- musically it predicts not only the aforementioned Suicide, but also Spacemen 3, Radiohead (The National Anthem), Led Zeppelin (there is a song called Misty Mountain, go figure!), die motorik of Neu!,and Eno/Byrne's 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' - 'Program' samples a radio as a dial is turned and so feels like a major precursor of that classic 1981-album! Heck, the more interesting side of drum'n'bass (Omni Trio, LTJ Bukem) and later-electronica (Cabaret Voltaire, Autechre, Squarepusher) could be traced back here...
It's great these significant, pioneering works are available again- releases that no-one with adventerous musical taste should be without. There are plenty of classics here, despite some of my misgivings above - A Pox on You, single Oscillations, Velvet Cave, Water, I Have Known Love...and so on. Absolute stone cold cult classics then and a snap at their current price!
Silver Apples were:
Simeon - the simeon, vocals
Dan Taylor - percussion, vocals
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Bearing in mind when this (these - there are two albums on this disc) was made you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps the first thing that the silver apples did was borrow a time machine. They blend the essence of detroit techno with psychadelic pop/rock into tunes (reminiscent of Looper) that trully shock and amaze at times, the end result feels fragile, as it the whole thing might explode, implode or just come off the rails. The high standard that the initial tracks set is more or less maintained throughout and you will not be dissapointed at the delightful noise that this experimental duo are capable of exploiting. After a listen to this you could be forgiven for thinking that Music has been going backwards ever since. Buy it and enjoy!
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Silver Apples were the first synth-pop band by a considerable distance - about 6 years in fact until Kraftwerk had a hit with Autobahn. However, comparisons with Kraftwerk probably stop there. For starters, despite being the world's first synth-pop band and years ahead of their time, Silver Apples were also OF their time, and that time was the late 1960s. So instead of deadpan, ironic Germanic motorik, you get lyrics that have a strong whiff of 60s hippie. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but you need to know that because it's a major part of what this duo are about, so if you're checking this out because it's the very beginning of all things synth-pop and you can't stand anything vaguely hippy-ish, you won't like this.
Now, this being 1968, there was no such thing as a drum machine, so one half of Silver Apples was a drummer, and a very good one at that. The other half, and the half that made them one of the most unique acts in popular music history, was the surname-free Simeon and his "instrument", named after himself. The Simeon (the instrument, that is) consisted of a whole bunch of tone generators set to different notes and triggered by various parts of Simeon's anatomy (his hands and feet mostly, the latter triggering the bass notes). This made it a very primitive polyphonic synthesizer (a decade before such a thing was commercially available), with not much variation of timbre being possible.
Now all this innovation would be worthless without some talent, and Simeon had clearly put the hours in learning how to make good music out of this strange contraption. The result, on the best tracks (especially the opening Oscillations), is a unique pulsating, propulsive sound combined with lyrics and vocals that would have sounded quite at home with any number of the psychedelic rock bands of the time. These, as suggested above, are a matter of taste, but Simeon is a perfectly decent singer and there have certainly been far worse hippie lyricists. Oscillations is really quite wonderful (you can dance to it, among other things) and Program, starting with a collage of voices and music, is a very fine piece of electro-psychedelia. Several other tracks on the first half of this CD (i.e. their untitled debut album) are also pretty good; the second half of the CD features their 2nd album, "Contact", which I've never been particularly impressed by - it sounds to me like they'd bored of their own novelty, though it's fair to say that "Contact" does have its devotees who think it's the better album. But this CD is absolutely worth getting for the best tracks on their debut if you are either interested in the more exploratory music of the late 60s or the history of synth-pop - they're not just unique, they're very good music.
Now, this being 1968, there was no such thing as a drum machine, so one half of Silver Apples was a drummer, and a very good one at that. The other half, and the half that made them one of the most unique acts in popular music history, was the surname-free Simeon and his "instrument", named after himself. The Simeon (the instrument, that is) consisted of a whole bunch of tone generators set to different notes and triggered by various parts of Simeon's anatomy (his hands and feet mostly, the latter triggering the bass notes). This made it a very primitive polyphonic synthesizer (a decade before such a thing was commercially available), with not much variation of timbre being possible.
Now all this innovation would be worthless without some talent, and Simeon had clearly put the hours in learning how to make good music out of this strange contraption. The result, on the best tracks (especially the opening Oscillations), is a unique pulsating, propulsive sound combined with lyrics and vocals that would have sounded quite at home with any number of the psychedelic rock bands of the time. These, as suggested above, are a matter of taste, but Simeon is a perfectly decent singer and there have certainly been far worse hippie lyricists. Oscillations is really quite wonderful (you can dance to it, among other things) and Program, starting with a collage of voices and music, is a very fine piece of electro-psychedelia. Several other tracks on the first half of this CD (i.e. their untitled debut album) are also pretty good; the second half of the CD features their 2nd album, "Contact", which I've never been particularly impressed by - it sounds to me like they'd bored of their own novelty, though it's fair to say that "Contact" does have its devotees who think it's the better album. But this CD is absolutely worth getting for the best tracks on their debut if you are either interested in the more exploratory music of the late 60s or the history of synth-pop - they're not just unique, they're very good music.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
a difficult one....
these 2 silver apples albums are weird ones for sure. the drummer is a genius no doubt brilliant simple dancey beats almost like a drum machine so simple yet so difficult. Read more
Published 1 month ago by charliemouse
it's teh serious bizness
This album is sometimes wonderous but mostly blunderous. A muchly flawed microcosm of the 1960s and it's flowery experimentalism. Read more
Published on 21 Mar 2009 by Mr. G. Halford
Dated and Overrated
Some albums become relics of their time and this is a good example.
Back in the day, I'd imagine this was something of an eye-opener as it had strange electronic noises and... Read more
Back in the day, I'd imagine this was something of an eye-opener as it had strange electronic noises and... Read more
Published on 21 July 2007 by social_outcast
Unmissable at this price
I bought this expecting to pick out sounds that would remind me of Hawkwind - I wasn't disappointed! Read more
Published on 10 May 2007 by Mist of Time
White Noise this isn't
I bought this 'cause Amazon recommended it as a 'Perfect Partner' to "An Electric Storm" by White Noise. There is no comparison, don't be fooled. Read more
Published on 23 April 2007 by Moz
A chin-stroking oddity of an album, but worth a listen
This is a piece of electronic music history. In fact it's electric rather than electronic, but it is a milestone. Though not all milestones are necessarily good albums... Read more
Published on 23 April 2007 by Mr. Stuart Bruce
The Doors go Sci-Fi
Firstly, if you're scratching your head thinking 'Hmmm. . .I quite fancy getting a Silver Apples CD. . . Read more
Published on 3 Oct 2006 by Pachubatinath
Pure Genius - Ahead of their time! 98%
Just to add to the other reviews here - I'd like to say that each track is worth a listen, as they are all good, if a little samey as a whole. Read more
Published on 8 Oct 2005 by a reviewer
Superb Silver Apples twofer...
This CD contains two Silver Apples albums-the self titled debut and the second album Contact.It is remarkable to hear them now,as they were incredibly ahead of their time in their... Read more
Published on 25 July 2005 by Ted Maul
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