Perry & Kingsley 'Kaleidoscopic Vibrations'

My initial thoughts on seeing this LP were that ‘Kaleidoscopic Vibrations’ sounds like a psytrance record. (Whilst my listening taste is diverse, as anyone that knows me will tell you - psytrance remains almost uniquely the one genre of music that I absolutely cannot tolerate).

Despite the LP’s 1967 release date, I’m actually fairly sure that to the uneducated listener, they probably don’t sound too dissimilar either.

Perrey and Kingsley were a duo of composer/keyboardists whom pioneered the use of electronic instruments (primarily the Moog Synthesiser) in popular music.

I picked up ‘Kaleidoscopic Vibrations’ last week (for the princely sum of $10) and was taken aback at how well it’s aged and how contemporary it sounds.

The LP, which was prophetically subtitled as, “Electronic Pop Music Of The future” is a mixture of reinterpretations of popular tunes (often theme tunes), including warbling Moog led versions of “Spanish Flea”, “Third Man Theme” and a surprisingly listenable reimagining of “Moon River”, as well as some more challenging (though still very melodic) originals.


One of the things that caught my eye on the reverse of the LP is the mention of their previous record, “The In Sound From Way Out”,  the title of which was clearly ‘recycled’ by the Beastie Boys for their 1996 instrumental collection of the same name.

I’ve not really had a great deal of time to digest the album, but I’m looking forward to blowing the dust of the old 1200’s and getting some beats behind this – particularly their somewhat jaunty approach to Jorge Ben’s “Mas Que Nada”.

All in all an eye opening purchase.