Mother Mallard's Portable... 1970-1973 CD

Was this the first legitimate US all-synth band? To all intents and purposes, yes. Mother Mallard were the Anglo doppelgangers of Tangerine Dream, but where the Dream first dipped themselves in a primer of Pink Floyd, Mother Mallard were reflected in a post-modernist mirror whose silver coating alchemically merged the minimalists (Steve Reich) with the laboratory process music of the rank academia. Mother Mallard's compositions weren't about deep space and investigations of gelatinous environments--their brand of music was informed by classical works as much as it was by rock.

"Ceres Motion" weaves a complex series of sequencer patterns in a powerful hypnotic mantra that suggests machines locked in a tight embrace; the atmospheric "Cloudscape for Peggy" works a series of repetitive drones to the same exhilarating effect. Mother Mallard's players--composers David Borden, Steve Drews and Linda Fisher--managed to bring academia to bear upon "populist" electronic music as well as commercialism, relieving the dry cadences of the former without resorting to the crass sensibilities of the latter. The result was one of US electronica's least known, yet most critically important, historical chapters.