Ignored in their lifetime and all but forgotten in the intervening years, The United States of America can be called one of the great lost bands of the sixties.

Not to be confused with The Presidents of the United States of America, the briefly popular nineties rock band, The USA were an avant-rock outfit, formed by composer Joseph Byrd in the halls of the University of California, Los Angeles. He wanted to create a band that would combine Indian music with prototype synthesisers and psychedelic rock into one radical, experimental unit.

Byrd quickly drafted drummer Craig Woodson, electric violinist Gordon Marron, bass player Rand Forbes (Rand Forbes! Is there a more perfect rock name in the history of music than Rand Forbes?!) and pianist Ed Bogas into the band. All they needed now was a singer. Byrd solved this problem by calling up his ex-girlfriend, Dorothy Moskowitz, and asked her to sing with the band. It was a smart move, because Moskowitz is the heart and soul of this record. She has a tremendous voice, at times gentle and soothing, at others devastatingly cold. It’s notable that the only really poor song on here, I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife For You, is sung solely by Byrd, rather than with Moskowitz.

The USA only made one album in their short career, but they packed more ideas into it than most other bands do in three or four. It doesn’t always make for a coherent mix of styles, but this is part of the record’s strange, ramshackle charm. Serene, almost ambient pieces, such as Cloud Song sit alongside full on psychedelic rock like Hard Coming Love. The conventional sixties pop of Wooden Wife is paired with the deeply odd Where Is Yesterday, a track that sounds like a Beach Boys song recorded by a bunch of Bavarian monks. The album ends on a discordant, disjointed note with the sound collage of The American Way of Life. It’s a peculiar end to a peculiar record.

Unfortunately, a combination of egos, in-fighting, poor advertising and bad luck put increasing pressure on the band, and things soon fell apart. Everything came to a head following a gig where three of the band were arrested for possessing marijuana, leaving Byrd and Moskowitz alone on the stage. The band split shortly after.

Byrd went on to form The Field Hippies, with whom he released another great but ignored album. He went on to record a number of solo albums and music for TV and film. Moskowitz also went on to another short lived band. To this day she refuses to name them in interviews, saying only that their sound was, “too mild”. After The USA split, an invitation was apparently sent out to her to join The Field Hippies, but she refused, tired of the tension she felt while working with Byrd. Despite the fact that they no longer communicate, Moskowitz and Byrd’s lives seem to have taken a curiously similar path. Both still live in California where they teach music at Universities.

The United States of America formed in 1967 and split just a year later. Their lifespan may have been brief, but it was glorious. In that time they created one of the most luminous and strange records of that most luminous and strange decade, and their influence lives on. Birmingham based electro-poppers Broadcast are huge fans and a recent reissue on the Sundazed label (complete with a brace of bonus tracks) has made the album available again to a new generation of listeners. This is a cult classic that’s well worth tracking down.