Sometime John Cage associate Joseph Byrd summoned a collection of liberal-minded musicians armed with ring modulators and anti-establishment principles to make an experimental rock record, which deserves to be as widely known as contemporaneous efforts by The Velvet Underground and The Silver Apples. Eschewing guitars in favour of violins, organs, calliope, harpsichord and pure electronics, The United States of America achieved a unique hybrid of Psychedelia and Electronica, which giddily reworked vaudeville and downhome Americana, encircling its sources with vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz's Iysergic melodic swoops and wildly oscillating synthesized tonebursts. "Where Is Yesterday?" sampled a solemn "Agnus Dei", and the closing "The American Way Of Love" weaves fragments from the whole record into a wayward tape tapestry. As far as I know, Byrd only made one more record (The American Metaphysical Circus) credited to Joe Byrd & the Field Hippies, but with The United States of America, he opened up territory, which disappointingly few have seen fit to explore further." Wire 175 ,September 1998: "100 Records That Set the World On Fire [When No One Was Listening]"