It’s all about the texture, the tone, the frequencies and the way they tap into the subconscious. It’s all about immersing oneself in the listening experience to achieve maximum effect. It’s physical, spiritual and cerebral. Listen... Skittering insect flickers and fluid fermentation... A solar wind funnelling down a vast metal pipe, cold deoxygenated air, sounds, disembodied, detached and alien. Bubbling bleeps ferment organically as though rising through a dense primordial bog… it’s all in there if you open your mind, drift and visualise....
What’s remarkable about these recordings is how well they’ve aged, particularly considering the fact ‘Electronic Music’ was recorded in 1967 and the 7 ‘Analogue Heaven’ pieces date from 1975. The third part of the album, ‘Fred & Me’ which dates from 1982 is an exercise in eerie minimalism, which again sounds remarkably contemporary. This 20 minute piece is a brilliant work of dark ambient music, rich in atmosphere and unsettling, its cavernous drones punctuated by thumps and bumps and clatters that flicker in the gloom before returning to the shadows.
Perhaps it’s because of the recent return to favour analogue’s experienced, and the apparent explosion of doodlesome instrumental music of an experimental bent that Preston’s recordings sound so contemporary. Yet at the same time, despite the flood of similar music available now, ‘Filters, Oscillators & Envelopes’ still manages to sound far out by any standards – so you can imagine how completely mind-blowing they would have seemed at the time they were recorded, with or without the aid of chemical input.
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These recordings may have lain in the vaults for a very long time, perhaps because they were simply exploratory side-projects and perhaps because they weren’t considered particularly marketable at the time. This shows just how far ahead of their time they were. Fortunately, their time is now, and ‘Filters, Oscillators & Envelopes’ proves Preston was – and remains – a true mother of invention, and deserves to bring his work – and not just that with Zappa and Beefheart – to a whole new audience.
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