George Harrison Electronic Sound LP

This item not eligible for any further discount offers!

As a direct result of the Beatles' keen curiosity about experimental music and other avant-garde artistic expression, Apple Records launched its short-lived Zapple subsidiary in February 1969 as a forum for unfettered sonic exploration, or, as announced at the time, "more freaky sounds." George's Electronic Sound and John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With the Lions, both released in May 1969, were Zapple's only releases before it was closed.

Electronic Sound's cover art, painted by George, depicts his Moog IIIP (which was later used on four tracks by the Beatles on their album Abbey Road) with the four modules from which the sound was synthesized. Each side of the Electronic Sound LP features one exploratory long-form work. However, the American version of the album placed the pieces on opposite sides to the UK record, but with the same titles retained on the labels. Research revealed that the UK LP was correct with "Under the Mersey Wall" on Side 1 and "No Time or Space" on Side 2.

Hard as it is to believe, George Harrison, guitar picker, was also an electronic music pioneer, as these two lengthy, abstract tone poems for early-vintage Moog synthesizer reveal... Though scoffed at when they were released, these pieces can hold their own and then some with many of those of other, more seriously regarded electronic composers. And when you consider that synthesizers were only capable of playing one note at a time and sounds could not be stored or recalled with the push of a button, the achievement becomes even more remarkable.