Roger Miller, Maximum Electric Piano – The Big Industry (1987, LP, Usa)

Tracklist:
A1 Portrait Of A Mechanical Dog - 3:01
A2 Boil Away - 2:59
A3 Hammers - 4:04
A4 Upon This Boat In This Sea - 3:00
A5 The Age Of Reason - 4:49
B1 Groping Hands - 4:38
B2 Manic Depression - 3:29
B3 The Big Industry - 7:19
B4 We Don't Know Why - 3:29

Musicians:
Sampler [Sampled Percussion Set: Oil Tank, Furnace, Egg Beater, Lawn Mower, Hubcap, Metal Sheet, Childeren's Bells, Helium Tank, Marching Snare Drum With Marbles In It,occasional Linndrum Sounds] – Russ Smith
Saxophone, Clarinet – Steve Adams
Percussion [Hammers On Pipes, Girders, Etc.], Vocals [Foreman's Vocals] – Russ Smith
Piano, Percussion [Sampled And Realtime Percussion], Voice – Roger Miller
Viola – Melissa Howe

Roger Miller's career is one of the most adventurous in rock history. He began with Sproton Layer, a Boston band who played psychedelic, Pink-Floyd-like music (and which had their first album With Magnetic Fields Disrupted published by New Alliance just in 1992). Miller became then the guitarist of Mission of Burma, the legendary punk band also from Boston. Afterwards, together with Erik Lindgren, Miller founded the Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. As that experience also came to an end, Miller had revealed himself to be a virtuoso of the piano, which was soon to be his only instrument.

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Miller's classical ambitions are more evident in The Big Industry (Ace Of Hearts, 1987), a maximum electric piano album (where maximum stands for prepared). It contains blurring, industrial mini-symphonies (above all The Age Of Reason and the title-track) and surreal, crazy lieder (Portrait Of A Mechanical Dog). The ballad Groping Hands, based on a weak metallurgic poli-rhythm, is emblematic. (Scaruffi)