An Electric Storm cover

An Electric Storm

Released

There’ve been a lot of weird pop collaborations over the years, but this team effort between jazz bassist/electronic engineer David Vorhaus and notable BBC Radiophonic Workshop veterans Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson — best known for their groundbreaking electronics work on Doctor Who — has to rank up there. Technically a pop record but filled with uncanny effects, weird moans, and surreal poetry on the first half and absolutely jaw-dropping ambient compositions on the second, it all culminates in an improvised piece called “Black Mass: An Electric Storm in Hell,” which sends 21 gigawatts of electric current through the River Styx. Unprecedented at the time, shocking even now.

Jeff Treppel

Recommended by

Suggestions
Acid Tablets Volume One cover

Acid Tablets Volume One

Jack The Tab, Psychic TV
Abbey Road cover

Abbey Road

The Beatles
Rabo De Nube cover

Rabo De Nube

Jason Moran, Eric Harland, Reuben Rogers, Charles Lloyd Quartet
S.F. Sorrow cover

S.F. Sorrow

The Pretty Things
Revelator cover

Revelator

E L U C I D
The Great Conspiracy cover

The Great Conspiracy

The Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Moritz Von Oswald & Ordo Sakhna cover

Moritz Von Oswald & Ordo Sakhna

Moritz von Oswald, Ordo Sakhna