Some albums do not merely belong to a different era; they seem to have been whispered into existence from a parallel dimension.
While most music is a product of its tools, its peers, and its timeline, these 'unplaceable artefacts' represent a total break from the cultural conveyor belt. They are records that exist in a sovereign territory of their own making, untethered from the gravity of genre or the expectations of the charts. Whether it is the medieval, harmonium-led chill of Nico or the submerged, aquatic jazz-folk of Robert Wyatt, these works defy the standard 'relay race' of influence.
To listen to these albums is to step outside of history. They don't sound 'old' or 'modern' – they sound permanent. These fifteen albums are the orphans of the music industry: records that arrived without predecessors and left without heirs, standing as solitary monuments in a landscape they created entirely for themselves.
1. Nico – The Marble Index (1968)
While her contemporaries were basking in the 'Summer of Love', the German singer-songwriter, actress, model and former Velvet Underground collaborator Nico retreated into a frozen, avant-garde landscape. Produced by the Velvets' John Cale, this record centres on Nico’s harmonium – a pumping, reed-based instrument that provides a wheezing, Medieval foundation for her deep, Teutonic vocals.
There are no drums, no blues riffs, and no concessions to 1960s pop. It sounds like a series of requiems sung in a 12th-century stone vault. By stripping away the warmth of the era, Nico created a stark, 'Gothic' blueprint that existed years before the term was ever applied to music.
2. Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom (1974)
Following a tragic accident that left him paralysed, former Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt crafted an album that sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of a peaceful ocean. It is a fragile, aquatic masterpiece where jazz-inflected keyboards and Wyatt’s high, wavering voice float in a weightless suspension.
The songs don't follow standard rock structures; instead, they meander like underwater currents. It is a deeply personal, internal monologue that manages to be both frighteningly intimate and cosmically distant. Even today, it remains a singular work of art that resists any attempt at classification.
3. OMD – Dazzle Ships (1983)
Liverpool synthpoppers Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) followed the massive pop success of 1981's Architecture & Morality with this cold, fragmented collage of shortwave radio snippets, industrial clatter, and Cold War anxiety. Dazzle Ships used the Fairlight CMI (the first digital sampler, as heard on contemporary albums such as Peter Gabriel's Melt and Kate Bush's The Dreaming) not for hooks, but to replicate the mechanical sounds of a submarine or a crumbling factory.
Dazzle Ships felt like a malfunction in the glossy synth-pop machine of the 1980s. It is a haunting, sonic documentary of a world governed by technology and distance, sounding more like a transmission from a dystopian future than a radio-friendly LP.
4. Jon Anderson – Olias of Sunhillow (1976)
Taking a break from being frontman of prog rock giants Yes, Jon Anderson sequestered himself in his Buckinghamshire recording studio to create a 'world music' for a world that doesn't exist. A kind of progressive-folk concept album, Olias of Sunhillow chronicles a magical exodus where three celestial beings build a living, organic spaceship named the Moorglade Mover to rescue their people from the volcanic destruction of their home planet, Sunhillow.
Playing every instrument himself, Anderson layered harps, bells, and primitive synthesizers into a shimmering, mythological odyssey. Olias of Sunhillow lacks the guitar-heroics and drum-heavy bombast of 70s rock, opting instead for a celestial, percussive shimmer. The result is a folk-tale from a distant star system: a record that sounds completely untethered from any earthly cultural heritage or musical trend.
5. Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden (1988)
Talk Talk’s transition from synth-pop idols to avant-garde pioneers culminated in this record of immense space and holy silence. Recorded in near-total darkness over several months, the album is a sprawling, improvised fusion of jazz, classical, and ambient rock. It essentially invented 'post-rock' by ignoring the frantic production standards of the late eighties. Mark Hollis’s voice emerges from the silence like a prayer, creating a record that feels like it has been playing in the background of the universe since the beginning of time.
6. Scott Walker – The Drift (2006)
Walker’s evolution from 1960s baritone crooner to 21st-century sonic terrorist reached its peak here. The Drift is an album of terrifying physical presence, famously featuring the sound of a percussionist punching a side of pork to mimic the sound of a body being struck. It deals in orchestral clusters, industrial groans, and agonizing silence. It is less a 'music album', more a... cinematic haunting. By abandoning melody and rhythm for pure, visceral atmosphere, Walker created a work that is as unplaceable as a nightmare.
7. Comus – First Utterance (1971)
Prog/folk/psych oddballs Comus created an 'acid folk' so violent and pagan that it sounds like it was unearthed from a prehistoric burial mound. Using only acoustic instruments – violins, woodwinds, and frantic hand drums – they crafted a soundworld obsessed with mental illness and ancient, predatory myths.
The vocals are feral and shrieking, completely devoid of the 'peace and love' sensibilities of the early 70s. It feels genuinely dangerous, a relic of a pre-industrial era that somehow found its way onto a vinyl record during the height of the hippie movement.
- We listed Comus among 14 obscure but brilliant 70s bands you should try
8. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure (1983)
Virginia Astley’s 1983 masterpiece is a hushed, pastoral dreamscape that exists entirely outside the neon-lit artifice of the early/mid Eighties. Eschewing synthesizers for piano, flute, and bells, Astley created a 'sound-diary' of a vanishing English summer. The music is woven into a tapestry of field recordings – bleating sheep, distant church bells, and birdsong – that function as the album's primary rhythm.
From Gardens Where We Feel Secure isn’t folk, ambient, or classical; it is a vivid, impressionistic watercolour of rural nostalgia and summers past. By capturing the hazy, timeless stillness of a July afternoon, Astley produced an artefact that feels both ancient and eternally present.
9. Arthur Russell – World of Echo (1986)
Arthur Russell was a musical polymath who drifted between the New York disco scene and avant-garde cello circles. World of Echo is his most singular achievement: just Russell, his cello, and a massive, dub-inspired delay system. His voice and cello merge into a rhythmic, pulsing fog where pop melodies are glimpsed and then lost.
World of Echo sounds like a ghost trying to remember a hit song while submerged in a cathedral. And it remains a work of stunning, isolated beauty that has no parallel in the history of experimental music.
10. Elizabeth Fraser & Jeff Buckley – All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun
Though these are technically unfinished demos, the collaboration between the Cocteau Twins' singer and Jeff Buckley created a celestial, shimmering folk-soul that feels entirely untethered from the 1990s. Their voices together create a harmonic language that feels ancient and divine, sounding more like a transmission from a pre-industrial paradise than a studio recording. It is a 'lost' genre in itself – a brief moment where two of history's most ethereal voices met in a sovereign territory that no one else has been able to find since.
11. Silver Apples – Silver Apples (1968)
In 1968, while the world was obsessed with the blues, New York's electro pioneers Silver Apples were playing hypnotic, proto-techno. Using a home-made synthesizer composed of telegraph keys and vintage radio oscillators, they created rhythmic, oscillating loops over live, tribal drumming.
As such, Silver Apples is a clattering, electronic pulse that arrived two decades too early (though it's possible to see it as an early outrider for the similarly hypnotic, groove-based krautrock scene that was soon to hit its peak). It has no roots in the folk or rock of its time; instead, it sounds like a modern electronic artist accidentally sent their equipment back through a time portal to a 1960s New York loft.
12. Spirit – It Shall Be (1968)
Spirit was a band of radical contrasts, featuring a jazz-trained drummer and a teenage guitar prodigy. While they were part of the LA rock scene, tracks like 'Ice' exist in a cold, jazz-fusion vacuum. The song utilizes a detached, shimmering piano and a drum feel that belongs in a David Lynch noir film from 40 years in the future. It is totally divorced from the psychedelic warmth of 1968, sounding instead like a premonition of the sophisticated, chilly 'cool jazz' that wouldn't arrive until much later.
13. David Sylvian – Blemish (2003)
Recorded in a month of 'automatic writing' following a personal crisis, the sixth solo album from former Japan frontman David Sylvian is a stark, uncomfortable masterpiece. It features Sylvian’s smooth, mourning baritone floating over the jagged, abrasive improv guitar of Derek Bailey.
There is no steady beat and very little traditional melody; instead, Blemish is a record of pure, raw nerve. It sounds like an electronic blues recorded in an empty digital void. By leaning into the dissonance, Sylvian created a 'genre of one' that stands as a monumental, lonely achievement in his long and captivating career.
14. Moondog – Moondog (1969)
Known as the 'Viking of Sixth Avenue', the blind New York street performer Moondog wrote complex, contrapuntal symphonies that he played on homemade instruments like the 'trimba' (a series of ten triangular drums, graded in size). His 1969 Columbia debut blends Native American rhythms with European classical structures and the ambient sounds of New York City.
It is sophisticated, mathematical, and deeply rhythmic 'outsider art'. It sounds like a lost Renaissance composer was reincarnated as a street musician in the 1960s, creating music that is as sturdy and permanent as a cathedral.
15. Kate Bush – The Dreaming (1982)
1978 was her explosive debut year ('Wuthering Heights' and all), while 1985 brought her the global fame of 'Hounds of Love' and 'Running Up That Hill'. In between these two landmarks is Kate Bush’s most unhinged and, for many, her most captivating album. Using the Fairlight CMI to layer animal noises, heavy breathing, and distorted cockney accents, she created a dense, frantic jungle of sound.
The Dreaming is an exploration of pure id that ignores every glossy production trend of the early eighties. It is a brilliant, terrifying record that feels like it belongs to no specific decade, existing instead in the wild, untamed landscape of Bush’s own imagination.
Artist pics Getty Images
