The legendary Simeon performing at the Luminaire on 8th August, with special guest appearances from Eat Light Become Lights and Sonic Boom, who will also be undertaking DJ duties.

Silver Apples were one of the first groups to employ electronic music techniques extensively within a rock idiom. According to their first LP liner notes, their unique sound came from “nine audio oscillators piled on top of each other and eighty-six manual controls to control lead, rhythm and bass pulses with hands, feet and elbows”. Simeon devised a system of telegraph keys and pedals to control tonality and chord changes, and reportedly never learned to play traditional piano-styled keyboards or synthesizers.

Although complex, their minimalistic style, with its pulsing, driving beat and frequently discordant modality, anticipated not only the experimental electronic music and krautrock of the 1970s, but underground dance music and indie rock of the 1990s as well. They have influenced everyone from Kraftwerk, Spacemen 3, Suicide, and Stereolab to only name a few.

It wasn’t until the albums were re-released in 1997 that Simeon and Taylor took Silver Apples back on the road and into the studio. It wasn’t to last, however: Simeon broke his neck in a road accident in 1999, and Taylor died from a heart attack in 2005, but the music of Silver Apples lives on through a recuperated Simeon and his beloved oscillators.

Simeon resides in the greater Mobile area.