The Electric Light Orchestra started off in 1971 as a artsy prog offshoot of The Move, then Brummie's biggest group, fronted by the distinctive cat scratch vocals of Roy Wood. But the baton would be passed to Jeff Lyne and his Beatles-esque disco pop of the mid to late 70s built more on pop rock and vacuum packed falsetto. The song most remember from this transitory period of the band is the mammoth 10538 Overture.
Its built around an endless stream of fuzz guitar power chords trickling down the centre of the mix; attacked on both sides by armies of brass , like French horns and strings, like cellos. Big Walrus like brays of cello stride in the fills like meat on a carcass. Jeff Lynns' crackly vocal is almost tinfoil thin but pierces through the densest of mixes due to its sandpaper texture so fine; which was necessary for a band like ELO. His voice and monolithic power chords drone off in a malevolent way while the eerie orchestrations sweep in and creep you out in elephantine howls. French horns march in step, get all puffed up and then blow hard in their blustery little parts, bolstering the song along. The rustic cellos have a hollow creak apparent in every roll , while Lynne and the guitars plough through continuously like the structure of the System. There is a Logan's' Run like momentum to the track, perfect for a man running from a totalitarian authority in dystopian city or a young man with the song playing as he exercises..like me.
They never perfected their dynamic between electric rock and acoustic orchestra as they did on this inaugural track, ironically everything after wasn't as successful; their later career would see the band flit from keyboard heavy pop arrangements faintly coloured by strings to old fashioned rock n roll. The wall of sound production creates a sizzling, frizzy hissy mix as the distorted array of electric and acoustic instruments do battle. The stabbing cellos squeak away as electric strings are plucked in digitised ripples, slashing across the mix, gouging huge chunks out the basic tracks with their raga pitched bellows. The invention of this towering masterpiece is up there with stately prog rock like Kashmir by Led Zeppelin, cleverly blending seamlessly a rock rhythm section with a string and horn section. There is a stature and innate power to this song from the tumbling arpeggios to the coruscating cellos and everything in between, not too dissimilar from the experimental noise of Bowie's Heroes.
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