Saturday, October 21, 2017

"Under The Mersey Wall" Session

When George Harrison was in Los Angeles back in November of 1968, he had shown interest in the Moog III synthesizer which was a gigantic patch cord affair (monaural key capability). This keyboard was demonstrated to him by Bernie Krause. Mr. Krause had been hired to play Moog on tunes for the upcoming Apple artist Jackie Lomax's LP (which George Harrison was producing). Intrigued by the machine, George asked that a demonstration of the machine and it's sound be shown and the demonstration was recorded. The tapes of the demo were kept by Apple. The track which would be eventually released as the A-side of the "Electronic Sound" LP was mainly white noise and bleeps. One of the synths was then purchased by George and shipped to his home in England - the synth would eventually be brought to EMI Studios and used on some of the "Abbey Road" sessions.
Fast forward to mid February 1969; Bernie Krause visits George at his home and learns that his demo back in November 1968 had been recorded and would be released as "No Time or Space" on a "Zapple" LP (a subsidiary to Apple). Of course, Mr. Krause disagreed and backed out of the project. George promptly removed the Bernie Krause credit from the back of the LP jacket before being printed.
The B-side to the LP was therefore recorded solely by George at his home. He named it "Under the Mersey Wall" and it consists of some musical phrases and experimentation played on the synth keyboard.
Eventually, both sides were officially released as the Zapple LP "Electronic Sound". On the US release, the side titles are switched so that the A-side plays the B-side and the B-side plays the A-side. This experiment was also released on CD back in 1996 and as part of the "George Harrison: The Apple Years"  box set from 2014 on a remastered CD with a nice gatefold cover showing the Moog keyboard and patches.
The LP didn't sell we, it wasn't promoted very well - typical of Apple Records at that time with non-Beatles produce. George Harrison himself hardly talked about it at all during his lifetime.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Mister Kite, I bought this LP when it was first released. I still have my pristine copy. I recall taking Mescaline around the time of its release, and listening to this LP.

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