"Yes! This is a strange record, I meant it to be," wrote in his liner notes for . As far as introductions to his 1960 cult classic album go, it's hard to top. 's musical trip to the moon was a singular album when he recorded it in his home studio with (aka the skiffle group and ); decades later, it's still a singular album. Its mix of exotica, surf, novelty pop, experimental electronics, and innovative production techniques -- which ranged from compression and reverb to sounds created from blowing bubbles with a straw -- doesn't sound like anything else, though it shaped music for years to come. Not long after, 's combination of pop melodies and pioneering sounds resulted in the soaring instrumental "Telstar," a chart-topping hit in the U.K. and the U.S. in 1962. (Only 99 copies of a truncated version of circulated during 's lifetime; a restored version of the full album didn't appear until 1991.) In a larger context, the album foreshadowed the boundary-breaking sound design and experimental music of the '60s and beyond. "The Bublight," a flowing, glowing collage of ballooning bass, out-of-tune piano, and woozy Hawaiian guitars, presaged the psychedelic sounds that blossomed years later. "Glob Waterfall," a study in percolating ambience and startling crashes, is one of 's most adventurous tracks and akin to the work of the era's famed electronic composers. Even the album's quainter moments are inventive. The brisk tempo and bouncy melody of "Dribcots Space Boat" suggest it's being played in an atmosphere different from Earth's; the tight, tweaked guitars of "Orbit Around the Moon" make it "Pipeline" as played by little blue men. Like the exotica records of its time, seeks to transport listeners to a far-off land. goes a few light-years farther with his lunar travelogue, introducing his audience to the moon's different denizens with more characterization than some late-'60s concept albums. "Entry of the Globbots" and "March of the Dribcots" are zany alien fanfares that feature the helium-laced vocals popular in novelty rock from to 's "Purple People Eater." However, it's the songs of the Saroos, a melancholy race cut off from the rest of the moon's society, that give the album its poignant heart and soul. "Valley of the Saroos," which combines an atonal melody with a familiar '50s chord progression, could be a slow dance favorite at a lunar sock hop. This pensive mood also haunts the title track, a zero-gravity ballad that foreshadows "Telstar"'s wonder and yearning. Though there were many more examples of 's studio wizardry to come, remains remarkable as a product of its time and as a radical peek into music's future. [ 's 2019 reissue of goes above and way, way beyond, gathering not only the original, unreleased version of the album but three discs' worth of music by electronic composers that bear a striking resemblance to 's homespun experiments. If possible, the white-label version of is an even wilder ride than the 1991 restoration, which reorganized the album's lunar flights of fancy into a guided tour. Here, hops from idea to idea and sound to sound on a wildly zigzagging path that's very different, but just as entertaining, as the released version. Somehow, the original track sequencing and raw audio quality make "Glob Waterfall" and "Entry of the Globbots" even more unsettling, though "Orbit Around the Moon" and "The Bublight" remain standouts. The set's other bonus material helps connect the dots between and what other, more seriously regarded, electronic composers were doing at the time. Pioneers including , are all represented here, and the liner notes provide an excellent primer on how this scene flourished, particularly in Europe. Among the many highlights are 's "The Chem Lab Mystery," which shows how closely related what was happening at the and at 304 Holloway Road actually were. teams up with (aka ) for "Time Beat" and "Waltz in Orbit," which are in even nearer orbit to 's space-age pop. 's "Dripsody (An Etude for Variable Speed Recorder)" echoes the fantastical atmosphere of 's work; 's "Poeme Electronique" goes further into the wild textures was beginning to explore; and 's dazzling "Syncopation (Orbit Aurora)" serves as a reminder that melody had as much of a place in early experimental electronic music as it does on this album. Just under four hours long, this edition of gives listeners a lot to explore, but it's well worth the voyage for those ready to dig deeper into this era after revisiting 's cult classic.] ~ Heather Phares