While re-listening to Bitches Brew tonight it occurred to me, there’s never been anything that sounds quite like it since, and there never will be again.
What are your favorite unicorn albums?
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Cake’s first album Fashion Nugget is the kind of unique that we rarely see twice.
The first time I heard F# A# ∞ I was so blown away. I still regularly listen to it even 20 years later from the first time I heard it. I recently saw them live which was incredible, but I was a tiny bit sad I didn’t get to hear Dead Flag Blues.
Definitely one of my favorite bands of all time.
Prince - Sign O the Times
One of the few albums I listen to beginning to end.
Also, Pink Floyd. Pretty much any album, but specifically Dark Side of the Moon or Wish You Were Here.
Check out the 1977 Prince Funk Sessions!
The two i listened to most when i was young were Sgt Pepper and Dark Side of the Moon. Happy for the vinyl revival so my kids can experience the two sides of an album.
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
I’ll throw my few in here:
Lemon Jelly - KY
Paul Simon - Graceland
Air - Moon Safari
Portishead - Dummy
Alt-J - An awesome waveThe first, like, 5 albums by They Might Be Giants are unique in their own ways. Just different blends of wackiness and musical sophistication, it’s sublime.
I really like Pretty. Odd. by Panic! At the Disco - it sort of reminds me of the later Beatles albums but is still unique.
Love this album. It’s the music that plays when the time finally arrives:
As I walk home from work on a dreary day, suddenly the clouds split apart, and in the warm light of a new day a clockwork dirigible bears down upon me. A beautiful androgyne, resplendent in a dashing suit of the color of burnished gold, leans down from the deck with a white gloved hand and grabs my eagerly lifted palm. I am borne away from this world of pain and sorrow on wings of song to take my place in the skies.
Endtroducing by DJ Shadow
It’s his inaugural album and there’s never been anything quite like it. Even his follow up albums, with his unique sound, feel a bit different than this one (not in a bad way, but I don’t think they meet your unicorn criteria).
Also, I think this easily goes in my top ten albums list.
I wanted to add some of my faves!
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Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra
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William Onyeabor - Who is William Onyeabor? - An enigmatic and reclusive Nigerian funk jazz wildman who was prolific and fairly popular in Nigeria in the 1970s. Let’s Fall in Love is so innovative!
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Miles Okazaki - The Sky Below - Just brilliantly innovative avante-garde jazz and guitar. I was struck when I first heard this album
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Smoke - Everything - A group of friends and musicians quietly got together in the heart of San Francisco to record this mysterious, challenging and psychedelic jazz trip. The whole album is a journey and should be heard at once, but if you just want a taste try this timestamp
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The Flying Luttenbachers - Destroy All Music - The song Fist Through Glass is the song that got me into jazz! I heard it on a late night radio show called Brave New Waves while coming down from mushrooms lol
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A Grand Don’t Come For Free by The Streets. I love this album start to finish and it’s got a great story right through it.
First time I heard it I’d gotten an email from Vice promoting it and I clicked the link thinking it would just be the first 20 seconds of each song but it was the whole album! Was just starting a movie but I never watched it, just listened to the album straight through. So good.
His first few albums really are seminal. If you’re a HHH there really is no comparison to them.
If this makes sense, there’s a feeling of old outlaw country in those albums and the stories he tells.
It’s funny because I’m not a HHH by any stretch of the imagination! But man, this is a desert island album for me. I absolutely get what you mean about the outlaw feeling though.
The Postal Service
There are many synth artists that try to target a similar feel, but the way they tug on your emotions with just the subtlest of sounds. Everything feels like it’s meant to fit. Never has a song made me feel more homesick than Recycled Air. And I don’t even want to go back home.
Honorable mention goes to Moon Safari by Air. First time I heard every song on that album felt like I’d heard it before in a memory.
Honorable mention goes to Moon Safari by Air. First time I heard every song on that album felt like I’d heard it before in a memory.
I still remember my first time hearing this too.
The dregs of a house party. Only a few chill people still up. Sun starts coming up and someone put it on. Absolutely perfect setting to hear that album for the first time.
I can immediately place myself in that room it seared itself into my memory with how well it hit.
I live under a rock, and I live in my own temporal warp field of mostly avante garde jazz works from 1940s-1990s
So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing this, I am loving the hell out of it!
reporting back; this album is lit.
In particular “Since I left you” and “Frontier Psychiatrist” are both jams.
This is one of my favorite albums ever.
If anyone was wondering, I believe nearly the whole album is made up of samples.
The Avalanches have a ton of other stuff. If you are a fan of Since I Left You, definitely check out the Gimix version which starts similar but has a lot of different tracks in it (including much more famous songs) https://youtu.be/X7i8bIhJY8c
They’re by far one of my favorite artists. And you are correct. The band has claimed the album has no original recordings at all. And something like over 3000 samples. I still don’t even know how that was possible to do back in the mid 90s when they were making it. They’re other two albums are also great, each one with a different vibe, although they started relying less on samples because of how much it complicated things to ask for so many rights to so many different tracks.
The Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come … blending melodic, hardcore, jazz, and electronic into one punk album
Salmon - Paco Drop the Chicken … Very eclectic rap / punk, beat-oriented with lots of changes. A personal favorite “local” band.
How is it possible that I’m the first to mention Days of Future Past?
*Passed, right?
Yes. Of course. My bad.
