Sky Cries Mary - This Timeless Turning (1994)

Inextricably linked with the resurgent space rock of the early-to-mid-'90s, but unflinchingly eschewing all but the most superficial strands of the genre, Sky Cries Mary's trance-rave hybrid reached a climax which brought even the major labels running. Twin vocals rise over a hot electronic soup, space whispers bleep in the dark behind the eyes and a boiling, rolling soundtrack lends inexorable motion to the most stubbornly static of listeners. Songs build from nothing, vague primitive chants which tap natural energies as yearning melodies. The segue as "These Old Bones" fades into the fractured yowling of "Stretched" reinvents the concept of pure improvisation for the 1990s. The live staple "4 a.m." restates all its concert power, while the classic "Every Iceberg Is Afire" even drew a remix from Steve Hillage. But no single song dominates; from beginning to end, this is an album not only of genre-defying beauty, but time-defying beauty too, a communion of the ancient souls that dwell in Anisa Romero's unspeakably pure vocals, and the demons which live in TR's bank of electronic trickery. Space rock for the whole universe.