silver apples: contact

180 gram vinyl pressing with a double-sided insert. This is a reissue of the second album Contact by '60s electronic legends Silver Apples, originally released by Kapp Records in 1969. This enigmatic duo, armed only with percussion, vocals and an early, specialized synthesizer, is often credited with giving the musical world its first electronic album, as well as having a significant influence on bands which followed in their wake; bands such as Ultravox and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. Silver Apples, named after a W.B. Yeats poem, consisted of electronics wiz Simeon Coxe and percussionist Danny Taylor. Simeon built an impressive collection of electronic paraphernalia (dubbed the "Simeon") which ultimately included a dozen oscillators, six of them tuned to bass notes which he played with his feet, an assortment of sound filters, telegraph keys, radio parts, lab gear and a variety of second-hand electronic junk. Contact ushered in the band's recorded popularity and a national tour was quickly organized. Several tracks on Contact feature bass lines provided by Simeon's banjo playing, but it is the clever use of the lead oscillator and new-found intensity of the lyrics that sets Contact apart from its predecessor. Such was the level of Simeon's growing electronic proficiency that the intro to the album's opening track, "You And I" more than successfully recreates the sound of an airplane taking off. Silver Apples all but disappeared from the musical firmament when Kapp folded in 1970, only to re-emerge in January 1997 to perform before a celeb-packed audience at the Knitting Factory. Again, the critics were unanimous. As the MC waxed poetic during an introduction to the Silver Apples concert in San Francisco, 1968: "You are about to have probably the most unusual musical experience of your life. The music will enter areas of your mind never before opened until now. At times it may be hard to understand, but if you let the music penetrate, you'll dig it."