IN ORDER TO TRULY blow one’s mind, one must travel to the far reaches of the music cosmos – to a place where Throbbing Gristle, Barbra Streisand, Captain Beefheart, Bongwater, Tim Buckley and Boredoms reign supreme and sonic adventures into the unknown are an essential part of daily life. A dimension where flipped-out acid rock rubs shoulders with records that reconfigured our conception of what music could be while manifestations of further-out lunacy – some barely recognisable as music at all – hover while laughing maniacally.
Welcome, then, to our list of the 50 Most “Out There” Albums Of All Time. Dig in, hold on tight and when you've emerged from the mayhem, let us know what we've missed by voting for your own ultimate weird record. We’ll compile a readers’ list as soon as our wigs have unflipped.
50. Paddy McAloon – I Trawl The Megahertz
MOJO SAYS:
Steve McQueen, we hardly knew you.
49. Basil Kirchin - Quantum
MOJO SAYS:
Music and sound manipulated into something entirely other.
48. Ottilie Patterson - Spring Song
MOJO SAYS:
Insane/inspired romp through period poetry and more.
47. Bongwater Double Bummer
MOJO SAYS:
Sprawling 2-LP debut from New York art couple who made Kim and Thurston look like Margot and Jerry Leadbetter.
46. Ennio Morricone - Escalation
MOJO SAYS:
Wildly psychedelic opus to peculiar painted lady film.
45. John Zorn - Naked City
MOJO SAYS:
Genre-slashing "compositional workshop" led by NYC jazz heretic Zorn.
44. AR & Machines - Echo
MOJO SAYS:
German guitar guru's crazed journey to the centre of the instrument.
43. William S Fischer - Circles
MOJO SAYS:
Mutant R&B from New York City's answer to David Axelrod.
42. Wild Man Fischer - An Evening With Wild Man Fischer
MOJO SAYS:
Frank Zappa unleashes the outsider artist's outsider artist on an unsuspecting world.
41. Throbbing Gristle - Second Annual Report
MOJO SAYS:
Punk preached chaos and anarchy, but only TG truly achieved it.
40. Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
MOJO SAYS:
Underground goes overground in womb-spaceship to the stars.
39. Mercury Rev - Boces
MOJO SAYS:
Kosmic Katskills kombo unlearn the rules of rock music. Flutes are involved.
38. Tim Buckley - Starsailor
MOJO SAYS:
Folk singer as screaming mood instrument. Starsailor fans need not apply.
37. Dreamies Auralgraphic Entertainment
MOJO SAYS:
52 minute psychedelic odyssey: the '60s aren’t over yet.
36. Cybotron - Cyber Ghetto
MOJO SAYS:
Grim vision of technoid future ruled "by the dark overlords of conformity".
35. C.A. Quintet - Trip Thru Hell
MOJO SAYS:
A tribal re-enactment of the apocalypse by the ghosts of The Count Five.
34. Barbra Streisand - …And Other Musical Instruments
MOJO SAYS:
Not your usual Barbra LP. Oh no.
33. The Stark Reality - …Discovers Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop
MOJO SAYS:
Boston funkateers’ dizzying one-off atonal psych-jazz junket.
32. Steven Jesse Bernstein - Prison
MOJO SAYS:
A suicidal Seattle writer records his last testament with the help of half of Pigeonhed.
31. Scott Walker - Tilt
MOJO SAYS:
A "torture chamber music" entree into one man’s private hell.
30. Esquivel! - Four Corners Of The World
MOJO SAYS:
Speed thrills by Mexican avatar of bachelor pad pyrotechnics.
29. Alexander 'Skip' Spence - Oar
MOJO SAYS:
Post-breakdown psychedelia from former Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane man.
28. Joe Meek And The Blue Men - I Hear A New World
MOJO SAYS:
The Clangers co-directed by Brian Eno and Liberace.
27. Comets On Fire - Field Recordings From The Sun
MOJO SAYS:
Santa Cruz shamen dyno-blast psych-rock into the 21st century.
26. Diamanda Galas - Plague Mass
MOJO SAYS:
Apocalyptic anti-liturgy. Not for the faint-hearted.
25. The Monks - Black Monk Time
MOJO SAYS:
GIs In Deutschland go AWOL, get tonsures, write punk rulebook.
24. Gordon Jenkins - Seven Dreams
MOJO SAYS:
Because they thought "nightmares" in the title wouldn’t sell?
23. Frank Zappa - Lumpy Gravy
MOJO SAYS:
A mind-blowing mélange of modernist classical ambition and basement-level hippy blather.
22. Perrey & Kingsley - Kaleidoscopic Vibrations: Spotlight On The Moog
MOJO SAYS:
The world remade as ferocious cartoon, via Moog-electrodes to the testicles.
21. Patty Waters - College Tour
MOJO SAYS:
The woman who influenced Diamanda Galas and Yoko Ono.
20. Boredoms - Super Ae
MOJO SAYS:
Osaka’s noise terrorists find infinite groove on the surface of the sun.
19. Hawkwind - Space Ritual
MOJO SAYS:
Space barbarians set the controls for the heart of the brain.
18. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
MOJO SAYS:
Indie navel-gazers push amps, pedals and record label to melting point.
17. Lightning Bolt Wonderful Rainbow
MOJO SAYS:
Breakthrough tumult from elemental experimental duo: riffs, noise, chaos.
16. The Residents - Ralph Records 10th Anniversary Radio Special!
MOJO SAYS:
The Residents drive one half of Penn and Teller insane...
15. The Holy Modal Rounders - The Moray Eels Eat...
MOJO SAYS:
Acid-folk opus from Rounders’ spin-off, featuring Sam Shepard.
14. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
MOJO SAYS:
How to blow the finest minds of your generation without even trying.
13. The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
MOJO SAYS:
Speed, sex, and drugs. Rock'n'roll? Barely.
12. Os Mutantes Os Mutantes
MOJO SAYS:
Brazilian LSD teens dismantle Beatles, put them back together wrong.
11. The Flaming Lips - Zaireeka
MOJO SAYS:
Four psychedelic masterpieces. Play simultaneously.
10. White Noise - An Electric Storm
MOJO SAYS:
Directions to the next century by a million short cuts.
9. The United States Of America - The United States Of America
MOJO SAYS:
"The price is right – the cost of one admission is your mind."
8. John Coltrane - Ascension
MOJO SAYS:
“A guaranteed soul rinsing,” promised the original sleeve-notes...
7. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love
MOJO SAYS:
Three go mad on 4-track. Rock guitar takes a vacation in Wonderland.
6. Faust - The Faust Tapes
MOJO SAYS:
Freewheeling, jump-cutting Krautrock in excelsis.
5. Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician
MOJO SAYS:
LSD, slaughterhouses, AM radio, scary clowns and Ozzy Osbourne conspire on one of the most unsettling records of all time.
4. Funkadelic Maggot Brain
MOJO SAYS:
"Play like your mother just died," George Clinton ordered Eddie Hazel. So he did.
3. Miles Davis - Agharta
MOJO SAYS:
Uncompromising jazz/rock/funk thing, knocked out in an afternoon.
2. Sun Ra - Space Is The Place
MOJO SAYS:
The man from Saturn wants to take you back there.
1. Captain Beefheart Trout Mask Replica
MOJO SAYS:
The claustrophobic inside-outsider art-blues of the Magic Band’s wildest hour.