rubber soul

Bruce Haack was an innovator of electronic music in many ways. Much, if not most, of his career was centered more around making music for children but he also liked to dabble in experimental music such as the Electric Lucifer. Released in 1970, it was years ahead of its time as it used a vocoder that he called “Farad” to emulate the vocals on several of the tracks, notably on the opening track, Electric Turn Me On. Electric Turn Me On is the best song on the album and sets the pace for what proves to be a great musical adventure in my opinion. Haack uses several vocalists over the course of the album and all of them do justice to Haack’s music. It wouldn’t surprise me if this album didn’t have an influence over more successful artists such as Eno. It certainly had to be influence over the auto-tune that is frequently used on modern R&B and rap. Anyway, as a casual fan of electronic music and a true fan of psychedelic music, this has to rate as a favorite of mine. I’m really glad you liked the album, Marie and Lisna, and thanks to the others that listened as well.

8/10 (The Word has spoken )

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Trollheart

All right, I've listened to this three times now and I always have the same reaction.

1 - 3: Not as bad as I had thought it might be; could do without the spoken word bit but it is only thirty seconds so..

4 - 8: Getting annoyed with the overt sixties tone now and don't like his voice. Also, wtf is this ****? Oh, and I really bloody hate children's voices. What? On record? Oh. Oh yeah. Right, right. That too. That Jew's harp is really annoying.

9 : Well maybe not too bad; perhaps I was a little hasty? That melody in "Angel Child" is ripped off from somewhere - just can't place it. Better though.

10 - 11 : Oh god no I wasn't: this is driving me mad now. Damn he loves that he's the first to figure out that DEVIL is LIVED backwards, isn't he? Oh and I absolutely ****ING HATE "Song of the Death Machine", which again has a stolen melody.

12: Hey maybe it will make a late attempt to finish well? This isn't bad.

13 : Okay this is pretty coo - what? WHAT! ****ing "The First Noel"?? Is this guy serious? Get me out of here.

So no, it's not for me. I can appreciate the innovation and the work put in here, especially for the time, but though I was born in 1963 I'm a child of the seventies. I wasn't in any sort of a position to appreciate music at all before the 1970s began, and for me this and the 1980s is the best decade for music. A little like Tom Waits claimed, I slept through the sixties, and have no interest in going back to hear what was playing then. Anything I have heard, mostly, I have disliked. The seventies, I can appreciate anything from disco and soul to pop and hard rock, heavy metal and of course prog, but the sixties? No thanks.

Sorry but I gave it a decent shot. Can only muster a 6/10 for this. BLNT. Shrug.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Lisnaholic

Yep, I share some of your misgivings about this album TH, and was perhaps hasty in giving it a score of 8.5

It turns out that I am nine years older than you, and thanks to an older sister who lead the way, 1963 was about the time I became fascinated with pop music. From Please Please Me to Sgt.Pepper, it was a decade in which artist and audience alike were in a constant state of exploration and discovery.

Is our long-standing online friendship really over in five short words ?

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

rubber soul

I know. If it wasn't for the sixties, we wouldn't have had the seventies .

Anyway, I'm old enough to remember some of the late sixties music in particular though I admit not really getting into it all until the early seventies via, surprise, the Beatles. Anyway, yeah, Electric Lucifer is definitely for an acquired taste, probably not for those into, say, Al Stewart .

So when do we review the next album? Already did a listen of Marie's gem. Will probably listen to it again this weekend (busy week in the real world).

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SGR

I'll be getting my review of this one up shortly - wanted to give it one more listen

Marie Monday

Ok since we're starting with mine, just a few notes for those who haven't listened to it yet:
It's available on YouTube and Spotify; both of those are the bonus track version. Everything after the tenth track is bonus stuff and not essential, except I heartily recommend Things Fall Apart, which is as good as anything on the original album

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Trollheart

I think our friendship is stronger than a mere ten years can break...
Now.

OP updated.

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SGR

Okay, Electric Lucifer:

The album begins interestingly enough as demented circus music with some electronically manipulated vocals. Kinda shows you what you’re getting into. Slight intermission into a weird spoken word section about dragons, devils and satan - uhhhh okay. Cherubic Hymn is a bit more normal - cherubs, angels, god and the universal man - I’m detecting some kind of theme here. The subtle electric screeches maintain my interest, but there’s not a whole lot going on here in terms of a groove. Then Program Me - okay this actually has a nice little bass line and Ray Manzarek-esque keyboards - actually, the whole song is a bit Doorsy - the problem I suppose is it doesn’t reach the heights that most Doors songs do, despite being more layered instrumentally than most of their material. The Doors meets post-punk? Something like that. Then comes War - it begins like a bad trip, but progresses like a woozy drunken night - until it hits this weird MIDI section that sounds like a theme song for an SNES or Sega Genesis game - I can’t put my finger on exactly which one, but something along the lines of this:



After the MIDI section is done, we get this vocalized “boop, bahp, wohp, wahp” section that sounds like it’s a distant relative of the vocals used in the Rugrats theme song (no joke) - when it does end, we hear a child’s voice “I don’t wanna play anymore” which doesn’t help with diverting my mind from the Rugrats vibe:



And then it slowly reverts back to the demented circus vibe before slowing down and sounding like a chilled out song from Boards of Canada’s first album. Uh…yeah, this is weird.

National Anthem to the Moon gets things back on track with a nice vocal performance and a nice groove. Chant of the Unborn brings us back to the strange electronic squelches to somewhat disappointing effect. Incantation is alright, though this album is starting to feel a little too layered for its own good. Almost feels like there’s nearly too much going on here. I’ve kinda lost the plot too - mother Mary giving birth - it’s necessary because of…something to do with the Earth. I guess it maintains its namesake quite well. An incantation it might well be.

Angel Child - more religious imagery, but it’s a little underwhelming. And then - Word Game - yeah, not into this one. Definitely a bit contrived, but I see what they were going for. In fact, there’s similar songs still being released today (that I like better) - made me think of the word repetition posing as poetry that Underworld did in Low Burn:



I just don’t think it works here. Sounds too goofy. Song of the Death Machine has this weird vocal melody - what’s this taken from, I feel like I’ve heard it before? - regardless, there’s one spot about a third of the way through the song where the audio channel cuts from just my left ear to both of my ears (yes, I listen on headphones) and this is just jarring to me. Again, just seems like too much going on in this song.

Super Nova is pleasant though - less so once the whispered vocals come in. And the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” bit, come on now.

Requiem is a bop though. A great song to end the album on - it progresses wonderfully and the vocals are a strength of this song rather than a detriment.

So, for an album that came out in 1970, this seems highly experimental. In that sense, I really respect the amount of exploration and ideas going on here. It’s quite impressive really. But unfortunately, this is an album that my mind likes a lot more than my ears do. The album doesn’t seem to flow naturally - the vocals are often grating, the ideas seem to be sloppily executed at times, and it too often feels like the group is throwing sh1t at the wall and seeing what sticks. Some of it does stick, but the trade off is that you’ve now got a bunch of sh1t on your floor too.

I think I’m comfortable giving this a 5.5/10 - I love what they were going for and how brave they were in doing it - but the end product? Eh….I can’t say I’m likely to revisit this one any time soon. That said, I like it more than the Phil Ochs album, for whatever that’s worth. I really tried to like this one, given my harshness towards the Phil Ochs album, but just couldn’t. I am glad I listened to it though - I didn’t realize this kind of music was being made in 1970.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the album cover for this thing is amazing.

Trollheart

I know the melody in that Death Machine thing too, and it's driving me mad not being able to place it, so if anyone knows, put me out of my misery. Please.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

SGR

I did some googling - I think it's the "You are my Sunshine" lullaby