This month’s cover feature tells the astonishing story of Joe Meek, the king of space age pop. Using peculiar electronic instruments like the Clavioline and wonky sounds made with tape effects, Joe Meek’s late 1950s and early 1960s productions heralded a new era in music. Add in his unorthodox and intense working methods, a spate of gangland threats and a bit of black magic, and a pill-popping climax of rapidly escalating paranoia, rapidly declining fortunes, and a brutal murder-suicide, and this really is a tale unlike any other.

To accompany the magazine, we are reissuing Joe Meek & The Blue Men’s "I Hear A New World" EP, a four-track seven-inch originally released in 1960. It’s the first time that this extremely rare and highly sought-after record – good quality copies of which usually sell for £250 or more – has ever been reissued. The tracks are certainly experimental, packed with weird noises and special effects, but there are some terrific space age pop tunes in there too. As with all of our seven-inch releases, the EP is only available to readers of Electronic Sound, so make sure you grab your copy while you can.