Bruce Haack - 1968 - Way Out Record For Children

Quality: 3.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

Bruce Haack was an early electronic music pioneer who went to the trouble of creating his own electric noise makers and synthesizers. He also had a serious whimsical streak, which must have brought in contact with Miss Nelson, his collaborator for this and a few other albums from the period. I believe Miss Nelson was a bona fide kindergarten teacher, and this is a bona fide children's album. Granted, I get an image of the kids in Huxley's Brave New World dancing to this just after their first hit of soma, but that's still children's music, yeah?

For the most part, these are more chants and stories than proper songs, but Haack's musical insanity often comes springing out of nowhere for a passage or three. 'Motorcycle Ride' doesn't have much more than a (sampled?) drum loop going for it musically, but the strange affectations of the vocals make me think of tots rolling down the street in a bike gang. 'Mudra' is probably the most mind bending of the tracks here, with the structure of a basic kindergarten activity, but the synthesized faux-Eastern sounds making the whole thing far stranger. "Accents" will just hurt your brain, but I suppose that it is somewhat educational. "Nothing to Do" is just waiting for a Yo La Tengo cover - maybe they've already gotten to it.

There aren't many psychedelic children's albums out there, and it's perfectly possible that all of them were made by Bruce Haack and Miss Nelson. Should you actually play it for your kid? Probably not - but I did. She seems to like J-pop better, though.