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
Post cover

Post

Björk
Horizogon cover

Horizogon

Babe, Terror
Inquatica cover

Inquatica

John Ettinger
Ultimate Sushi cover

Ultimate Sushi

Small Fish with Spine
Rastakraut Pasta cover

Rastakraut Pasta

Dieter Moebius, Conny Plank
Crazy Itch Radio cover

Crazy Itch Radio

Basement Jaxx
Duw a Wyr (God Only Knows) cover

Duw a Wyr (God Only Knows)

Huw Warren, Lleuwen Steffan, Mark Lockheart
A Hole Is True cover

A Hole Is True

Double Leopards
Bee Thousand cover

Bee Thousand

Guided by Voices