Zounds! What Sounds!

A brilliant fusion of swinging big-band arrangements and oddball sound effects (courtesy of Tom and Jerry SFX wizard Phil Kaye), Dean Elliot's Zounds! What Sounds! remains one of the most imaginative and ambitious records of the space age pop era. Elliot's challenging arrangements transcend the confines of novelty music, incorporating the effects directly into the melodic structure of the songs — for example, drops of water comprise the melody line in "Rain," while a ping-pong ball doubles as percussion in "All of You." Clocks, train whistles, and even vintage cement mixers further round out Elliot's orchestra of found sounds, and while there's an undeniably comic element to this music, it's so much more than the sum of its junkyard parts — in its way, Zounds! What Sounds! is as revolutionary and avant-garde as anything ever released on a major label, and is still ahead of its time decades after the fact.