ELSEWHERE

I've been aware of Master Cylinder since 1996. I certainly regretted not trying them earlier because I was truly amazed! Given their sole album Elsewhere came out in 1981 and this band hailed from Texas, I didn't expect them to be remarkable, or the music simply too '80s sounding for my liking. When I think Texas, I think of blues-based rockers like ZZ Top and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Master Cylinder is totally unbelievable: a Fort Worth band playing Canterbury music that's not a million miles from the likes of Hatfield & the North, Soft Machine, Gilgamesh, even the Muffins. Like the Muffins the group is all-instrumental. What blows me aware other than all that, is this group not only managed this in 1981 but can hold its own with the likes of the Muffins as well as the UK bands of the '70s. The tragedy is this was only released on vinyl on the Inner City label and never reissued in any capacity whatsoever (I could see this on Cuneiform Records). This has everything I came to love of this kind of music, very creative jazzy passages, nice use of analog keyboards, all '70s, even the music sounds like it made in the 1970s, not the beginning of the '80s. The music is often complex and challenging. The cover depicting, which I guess to be chaos at a New York City intersection, gives no clues what amazing music you'll be getting within. How did these guys pull this off in Texas? Especially in Fort Worth. Regardless a huge surprise for me, and clearly one of the best albums from the early '80s I've heard.