No one sounds like Heinz, because Joe Meek produced Heinz. And the closest record maker to Meek is maybe Brian Eno, during his early solo album/song career. Meek started off as a recording engineer for EMI during the 1950s and eventually left the corporate music world to start his own label, Triumph Records, for the sole purpose of producing and even writing hits. His one accepted masterpiece is "Telstar," which he wrote and produced for The Tornados. In that instrumental band, the platinum blond bassist, Heinz, caught Meek's eye (and ears). If Phil Spector had Ronnie, then Heinz was Meek's obsession.
The 16 songs on this compilation album are recorded in what sounds like from another planet. Each country has their own take on rock n' roll, and these recordings sound like they came from Mars. To describe the music, it's basic rock or pop but filtered through Meek's aesthetic it becomes a weird hybrid of bedroom recordings (he worked mostly in his home studio in North London) and musique concrete practices. It's pop music, but clearly has avant-garde leanings that I don't think Meek was aware of. In that sense, he's an outside artist who thought himself as a commercial hit-maker. And he was, at certain moments in his brief and tragic life.
For the last 25 years or so, I have been obsessed with Joe Meek. I'm slowly collecting his works on CD and on vinyl, which at times can be difficult to obtain. "The Singles" I found the other day at Rockaway Records in Silver Lake, and I believe that it was once owned by Ronald Kane, who had a record collection that was out-of-mind-out-of-body great. Nevertheless, Heinz belongs in an eccentric world of sound and vision. The compression of the sounds and the muted drums are surely the foundation for not only Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets," but also the pop side (side 1) of Bowie's "Low." Without a doubt, the strangest recordings to come out of 1960. Therefore a work of genius.
