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3CD BOX
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ACME 349BOX
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"A presentation featuring Joe Meek's fantastical lunar stereophonic sound adventure, I Hear A New World; both the celebrated 1991 RPM restoration and the original unreleased 1960 concept album; placed in broader international context alongside seminal works by other pioneers of electronic music; from Daphne Oram to Edgard Varèse. Considered in this context, Meek's masterpiece seems less an oddball pop novelty than a daring and visionary electronic sound exploration. The legendary British pop producer came to prominence during the repressed monochrome days before the Beatles arrived to change everything; an era of fascination with all things Space Age and nuclear; a mood Meek encapsulated with his biggest hit, Telstar by the Tornados; a million selling chart-topper on both sides of the Atlantic and the first British pop single to reach Number One in America. Electronic gear and studio techniques were Meek's obsession. He would dismantle a piece of equipment and modify it in order to ramp up its capability and thought nothing of building his own compressors, equalisers and echo units. The trademark Meek sound combined an extra-terrestrial keyboard, brittle guitars awash with reverb and a spectral vocal all fiercely compressed. He constantly pushed at the frontiers of his studio's technical potential, using it as an instrument in its own right and often applying authentic musique concrète procedures in the perpetual search for new sounds. His knowledge of electronics was as advanced as anyone in Britain at the time. The establishment record labels were intimidated by Joe's inventive genius and moody eccentricity; embarrassed that he could outdo them by producing hit records from a glorified home studio above a leather goods shop on the Holloway Road."
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