From their original work in the late 60s through to their unexpected revival in the mid-90s, this cult US outfit has been rightly hailed as a major influence in the development of electronic music in the latter half of the twentieth century. They were possibly the first "band" to create pop music out of the rhythmic pulse and repetitive patterns of electronic instruments.
The Silver Apples formed in 1967 from the ashes of covers outfit the Overland Stage Electric Band and originally comprised Simeon Coxe and Dan Taylor (b. USA, d. 10 March 2005, Kingston, New York, USA; drums). Taking their name from a line in the W.B. Yeats poem "The Wandering Angus', the duo's recordings in the late 60s were met by general bewilderment and almost total lack of recognition at the time. Simeon performed on an early synthesizer prototype (also known as the Simeon) comprising nine audio oscillators and eighty-six manual controls played, seemingly, with whatever part of the body was free at the time. The Silver Apples" self-titled debut album sounded for all purposes as if it had been beamed down from another planet, its innovative fusion of bizarre home-made electronic noises and complex percussion completely removed from the era's dominant psychedelic rock sound. Somehow Simeon and Taylor managed to create melodic order out of the chaos, with the former gamely attempting to sing along on a number of tracks (the hippie lyrics were one of the few concessions to the age).
The 1969 follow-up Contact attempted to introduce a more experimental edge to the duo's sound, but the results just sounded messy with the exception of the banjo-led "Confusion" and the beautifully simple "I Have Known Love". With their record label pressing for more commercial results and the money running out, the original line-up of the Silver Apples almost inevitably imploded. Coxe and Taylor then disappeared from the music scene, with the former pursuing a new creative direction with his art, poetry and painting.
The Silver Apples belatedly found some long overdue recognition in the 70s and 80s when their work was name-dropped by a new wave of electronic-based rock bands including Suicide and Spacemen 3. The reissue of the Silver Apples' back catalogue prompted Coxe to re-form the band in 1996. Unable to locate Dan Taylor he recruited young musicians Xian Hawkins (keyboards) and Michael Lerner (drums) to help record a new album, Beacon. Taylor heard the band being played on the radio and got in contact with Coxe, leading to the reunion of the original duo. One of their first projects was to release some long-lost recordings from 1969 (The Garden) before completing the almost completely atonal Decatur with Lerner. They also teamed up with Spectrum to record a mini-album and completed an album with UK psych-noise outfit the Alchemysts. A serious van accident in 1998 brought the Silver Apples revival to a shuddering halt, with Coxe suffering a broken neck and being forced to spend several years recuperating. Taylor's death in 2005 prompted Coxe to put the Silver Apples on indefinite hiatus.
