THE VOICES OF WALTER SCHUMANN
Exploring the Unknown
(RCA/BMG Music Spain)

Of the cult outer space LPs of the early hi-fi/stereo era, Exploring the Unknown often evades the attention it deserves. Here, spoken accounts of fantastic experiences in space cascade over music ranging from languid dreaminess to bombastic pomp to unnerving moodiness.

This 1955 oddity boasts quite a cast: thrift-store-bin veteran Walter Schumann and his “Voices” on wordless “aaaaaaaahh” vocals (and the occasional rah-rah lyrical anthem to scientific progress like “New Frontiers”); original music by Leith Stevens (Destination Moon Soundtrack, et al.); and over-the-top narration by voiceover god Paul Frees (tons of Jay Ward cartoons).

It's a solid album overall, with spikes of insane brilliance as Schumann’s Voices and orchestra do maniacal musical gymnastics and Frees sends your brain into orbit. One thing about this sci-fi fantasy story record is that it initially sounds like something marketed to kids. But it’s clearly geared toward whatever audience would dig stuff like “Arrival at Venus, New Sensations.” That masterpiece documents an encounter with a telepathic Venusian woman “gowned in luminescent and diaphanous material that flows and clings to her body.”

Not only is this release impossibly rare on vinyl anyway, its quiet passages make it an essential item to have remastered on CD. Stellar!!!

(Originally published in Cool & Strange Music Magazine, Issue #20, Spring 2001)