Joe Meek & The Blue Men – I Hear a New World
I’d never heard anything about this album or artist before and when a work colleague passed over the CD, the cover drew me in and I was keen to discover what weird delights awaited beneath.
This album was originally recorded in 1959 and still sounds amazing and intriguing in 2009. To help you piece together the sound, I’d describe it as Danny Breaks without the big chunky drums. Bizarre sounds wander through soundscapes with pitched up vocals sitting reverbed out very low in the mix and it’s hard to find words to describe it. Here’s the text from the Wikipedia article on the album – this might help a little.
The album was Meek’s pet project. He was fascinated by the then-new space programme and proposed that life existed elsewhere in the solar system. This album was his attempt “to create a picture in music of what could be up there in outer space,” he explained. “At first I was going to record it with music that was completely out of this world but realized that it would have very little entertainment value so I kept the construction of the music down to earth.” This he achieved, as producer, by blending The Blue Men’s skiffle/rock and roll style with a range of sounds and effects, created by such kitchen-sink methods as blowing bubbles in water with a straw, draining water out of the sink, shorting an electrical circuit and even banging partly-filled milk bottles with spoons; yet one must listen carefully to detect these prosaic origins in the finished product. Another important feature of the recordings is the very early use of stereophony.
Here’s a couple of audio clips to give you an idea of what to expect:
Joe Meek & The Blue Men – Valley of No Return
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Joe Meek & The Blue Men – Glob Waterfall
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Joe Meek & The Blue Men – Love Dance of the Saroos
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