The eMusic Dozen: Lost Rock Gems

As with the work of Askew's ESP labelmates the Godz, 1968's Ask the Unicorn is a real lost classic of "outsider music." On his one and only album, Askew sings (in an anguished, tremulous voice) and strums (on a ten-string medieval instrument known as a Tiple) his way through ten solo performances crammed with zigzagging melodies and oblique lyrical imagery. If Captain Beefheart had written songs for Skip Spence to sing, tracks like "Marigolds," "The Garden" and "Red Woman -- Letter to England" might have been the intriguing result.

Though the brief musical collaboration of Peter Giles, Michael Giles and Robert Fripp was roundly ignored at the time -- the trio's 1968 debut sold less than 1,000 copies -- it proved, in retrospect, to be an important testing ground for many of the musical ideas that Fripp would carry with him to King Crimson. Released in 2001, this collection of outtakes and home demos mixes jazz-inflected psychedelia ("Why Don't You Just Drop In," "I Talk to the Wind," "Murder") with pastoral pop ("Plastic Pennies," "Make It Today") and Fripp's solo guitar showcases ("Tremelo Study In A Major," "Suite No. 1"), yet makes for a remarkably cohesive and enjoyable listening experience overall.

Best known today as the folksinger from whom Led Zeppelin stole "Dazed and Confused," Jake Holmes was also the songwriting genius behind the Four Seasons' Genuine Imitation Life Gazette and Frank Sinatra's Watertown, two of the most underrated concept albums of the '60s. Released in 1967, Holmes' own A Letter to Katherine December is right up there with those aforementioned records, a haunting folk-psych song cycle that dissects both the failure of Holmes' first marriage and the emptiness of the American Dream. The poignant "Late Sleeping Day", the caustic "High School Hero" and the disturbing "Leaves Never Break" are just a few of the album's highlights.

The best thing to come out of Wales since Tom Jones, Swansea quintet Man were legendary -- in the British Isles, at least -- for their unique combination of pub-rock muscle (drummer Terry Williams would later form Rockpile with Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds) and Haight-Ashbury-style psychedelia. Both elements can be heard to splendid effect on this 1971 album, especially in the earthy rave-ups of "Many Are Called But Few Get Up," "All Good Clean Fun" and "Love Your Life". Jam band fans who haven't discovered Man are in for a real treat.

Taking its title from the same Crimean War battle that inspired Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," Balaklava is essentially an anti-war concept album, albeit one that makes its point with melancholy metaphors and melodies rather than righteous anger. Lovely yet blistering indictments like "I Saw the World," "Images of April" and "Translucent Carriages" must have hit home hard in the dark days of 1968, when this album was first released. And with the US blithely repeating the mistakes of the Vietnam War with its ill-conceived military campaign in Iraq, Balaklava sounds as relevant -- and unbearably poignant -- as ever.

Though it was recorded with help from members of Faust, the 1972 debut album from German experimentalists Slapp Happy eschews Krautrock-style futurism for a crazy quilt of classic rock clichés and conventions. The result is something that, by turns, sounds familiar, unsettling, annoying and oddly ahead of its time. "Blue Flower" could be a straight homage to the Velvet Underground while "Heading for Kyoto" seems to prophesy the emergence of both Nina Hagen and Kate Bush. And with the humorous rocker "Tutankhamun," they beat Steve Martin's "King Tut" to the punch by a good six years.

Recorded the same year as the Velvet Underground's debut album, Godz 2 is so idiosyncratic -- willfully inept might be a better description -- that it makes the Velvets sound like seasoned session pros by comparison. Listening to deranged tracks like "Riffin," "Crusade" and "Squeak" is a little like eavesdropping unintentionally on your next-door neighbor's acid trip -- it's annoying and somewhat disturbing, but you still can't pull yourself away. And yet, there's also strange beauty in the droning choruses of "Radar Eyes" and "Permanent Green Light," proving that there was at least a bit of method to these New Yorkers' madness.