George Harrison
Electronic Sound

THE REVIEW

The day a band is capable of transitioning - within five years - from songs like "Please Please Me" and "She Loves You" (both from 1963) to an LP with the sound of "Electronic Sound" from '69 will mean that the new Beatles have been born... meaning the best rock band of the century.

The LP in question is the second solo album by George Harrison (he was only 26 at the time) who had not yet become a former-Beatle. It is well-known that since 1965 the Beatles began to expand their horizons through acids, mantras, Indian gurus, speedball, and trips to India, and their music was becoming infused with "hare krsna" and "love," with sitar and backward tapes, with mind-blowing unorthodox orchestrations and floating melodies seasoned with surreal lyrics.... but the album I present to you today is something else entirely.

Harrison, the quiet Beatle struck by India and the sounds of the sitar, offers us two magical electronic compositions created with the help of the then-emerging musical technology made up of mellotron, synths and other electronic contraptions. Inspired by what Lennon had done with his infamous "Two Virgins" George Harrison delights us with sounds that seem to come from other worlds, faraway galaxies, and desolate interplanetary spaces. The result is interesting, though below Lennon's Revolution 9 from the "White Album," and soon becomes a cult of that avant-garde genre. In the face of those who believe that the Beatles are the guys who wrote "Yesterday" and stuff like that.

To be listened to on headphones, while watching the images of "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Tracks

1. Under the Mersey Wall - 18:39
2. No Time or Space - 25:07