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
Qvaris cover

Qvaris

No-Neck Blues Band
Northbound cover

Northbound

Iro Haarla
Phallus Dei cover

Phallus Dei

Amon Düül II
Lóki? cover

Lóki?

Arnaldo Baptista
Sgùrr cover

Sgùrr

Thy Catafalque
Vol. 3: A Child’s Guide to Good & Evil cover

Vol. 3: A Child’s Guide to Good & Evil

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Terry Riley: In C cover

Terry Riley: In C

Members of the Creative & Performing Arts at SUNY-Buffalo