Mellotron

I've always been fascinated by electronic music - just the sheer otherworldliness of it - but I haven't always been quite aware of the different instruments involved. However, there is one electronic instrument that I could listen to again and again; and that is the Mellotron. At first it can be mistaken for a rather stilted string section or a mysterious ethereal choir but it has, above all, a warm dreamlike quality that is quite unlike anything else.

The peak of popularity for the Mellotron was 1970s prog-rock. It's probably given it a rather tainted reputation as a result, which is a pity as some of that prog-rock was actually rather good - it's just a pity that so many of the musicians involved disappeared up their own backsides. Jean Michel Jarre described the Mellotron as the "Stradivarius of electronic music" and, just like a finely manufactured violin, in the right hands it is heavenly. These are five of my favourite Mellotron performances in purely chronological order:

The Beatles : Strawberry Fields Forever

The Beatles are often credited with popularising the Mellotron but they weren't the first to use it and Strawberry Fields wasn't their first track to feature the instrument. In fact it's more a case of how little it was used and that's why it has such a great effect. They used a woodwind sound on the Mellotron to give their guitars a slightly dreamlike quality for the first two verses. In fact the song was recorded twice and the second part features a string quartet arrangement that makes for a much harsher and aggressive sound - as if a fondly remembered childhood memory was suddenly seen in the cold light of day. It's quite unlike anything recorded before or since.



It is often imagined that this record was number one for weeks. In fact it was a double A-side with Penny Lane, a song of which I am very fond as it makes a grim bus terminus sound so cheerful and inviting; and also because in the 1960s my uncle actually was the banker in Penny Lane. The record was actually kept off the top spot by Engelbert Humperdinck's Release Me.

King Crimson : In The Court Of The Crimson King

King Crimson were a truly frightening band. This album started off with the distorted screechings of 20th Century Schizoid Man and really took the listener on a tortured journey of love and loathing from thereon. In The Court Of The Crimson King was the closing track and featured the Mellotron much more prominently than The Beatles did. It's a blessed relief at the end of the album and really shows the full range of the instrument.



Tangerine Dream : Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares

Tangerine Dream were often at the forefront of electronic music in the 1970s and Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares, in spite of its dreadful sounding title, beautifully shows how the Mellotron can be used as a lead instrument. I actually prefer this to Phaedra which was the lead track on the album of the same name.



OMD: Maid Of Orleans

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were one of the leading innovators of British electronic pop music so it seems odd that they should opt for older technology for their Architecture & Morality album. In fact, I think it was a stroke of genius. At the time digital polyphonic synthesisers were becoming all the rage and the sight of a big haired dandy prodding at a keyboard would become an all too familiar sight on Top Of The Pops. The one problems is that these early digital synths sounded ugly beyond all belief. Hence, the boys from The Wirral chose to stick to the auditory delights of the analogue world. Maid Of Orleans shows the effect well but the whole album is worth listening to for the sweeping, eerie Mellotron sounds.



Radiohead : Exit Music (For A Film)

Radiohead have played around with allsorts of odd electronica. Kid A featured an Ondes Martenot although Exit Music pre-dated that album by a number of years. This starts out, and largely continues, as one of the most depressing songs I've ever heard. In fact it helps to know that it was written as the closing title music to Romeo and Juliet - at least the lyrics make more sense that way. The song begins as a melancholy guitar ballad and the Mellotron cuts in as it moves from suicide note to something of the afterlife. It's really quite beautiful in an ending-it-all kind of way.