Description
Silver Apples – The Garden – Double 180 Gram Vinyl Record
Silver Apples – The Garden is a posthumously released third album by the pioneering electronic duo Silver Apples, recorded primarily in 1970 but not officially released until 1998, nearly three decades later. The album is both a fascinating time capsule and a resurrection—a lost work from a band that was decades ahead of its time, blending experimental electronics with psychedelic rock in ways that anticipated whole genres, from synth-pop to Krautrock to modern electronic music.
Formed in New York in the late 1960s, Silver Apples consisted of Simeon Coxe (known simply as Simeon), who played a self-constructed electronic instrument made from oscillators (dubbed The Simeon), and Danny Taylor, who played drums. Their first two albums—Silver Apples (1968) and Contact (1969)—were revolutionary in their use of electronics within a rock framework. But due to legal issues and poor commercial reception at the time, the band was forced to disband, and The Garden remained shelved for decades.
The Garden was recorded in 1970, mostly in a home studio setting, and it shows the duo continuing to explore modular synthesis, looping rhythms, tape manipulation, and minimalist textures. When it was finally completed and released in 1998 by Bully Records, it felt like a missing link not only in Silver Apples’ discography, but in the evolution of experimental and electronic music itself.
While the album retains the primal, repetitive pulse and hypnotic quality of their earlier work, it also introduces a slightly more organic and reflective tone. The oscillators are still present, but there’s more room for melody and space, and Taylor’s drums often play a more grounded, meditative role. Tracks like “John Hardy” and “Mustang Sally” (yes, a reimagined cover of the soul classic) offer a fascinating collision of traditional American roots music with avant-garde electronics, giving the album a unique psychedelic-folk-meets-space-age quality.
One of the more intriguing aspects of The Garden is its pastoral mood, which contrasts with the colder, more mechanical feel of their earlier recordings. Songs like “Mad Man Blues” and “Confusion” still feel experimental, but they lean more into rhythmic groove and lyrical abstraction than noise or chaos. There’s an impression that the duo, had they continued uninterrupted, may have ventured into even deeper explorations of electro-acoustic fusion.
By the time The Garden saw release in the late ’90s, Silver Apples had already been rediscovered by a new generation of musicians, thanks to their influence on genres like krautrock, synth-pop, IDM, and drone. Bands like Suicide, Stereolab, Broadcast, and Animal Collective, as well as electronic artists such as Aphex Twin and Oneohtrix Point Never, have all acknowledged or embodied elements of Silver Apples’ sonic DNA.
Though The Garden lacks the sheer shock-of-the-new that accompanied their 1968 debut, it adds emotional depth and nuance to their legacy. It’s not just an archival curiosity—it’s a fully realized artistic statement, albeit one that had to wait nearly 30 years to find an audience. The delay in its release only serves to highlight how timeless and forward-thinking the band was. Even in unfinished form, their work sounds more in line with future music than with the time in which it was made.
In many ways, The Garden is a fitting metaphor for Silver Apples themselves—a seed planted too early, only fully blooming decades later. For fans of early electronic experimentation, psychedelic minimalism, and boundary-pushing music history, this album is essential listening.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
I Don’t Care What The People Say
Tabouli Noodle
Walkin’
Cannonball Noodle
John Hardy
Cockroach Noodle
The Owl
Swamp Noodle
Mustang Sally
Anasazi Noodle
Again
Starlight Noodle
Mad Man Blues
Fire Ant Noodle
The Lady And The Clown
Mad Man Blues (Alt. Version)
