The 2006 CD titled Pepper Box is actually just a retitled version of the 1974 U.K. LP A Taste of Pepper, a Taste of Honey, with two bonus tracks and a brief historical liner note. The linchpin of the record is the song "Pepper Box" itself, which became a fluke novelty hit of sorts in late 1974 in Britain, where it reached number six in the charts (also managing to hit number 76 in the U.S. listings). Actually the work of French artist Roger Tokarz, the instrumental backed the searingly high tones of the Moog synthesizer -- still futuristic at the time -- with a basic, slightly disco-fied rhythm track and occasional faint wordless chanting vocals. The rest of the album has elementary variations on that formula, and while it's not quite as kitschy as earlier Moog instrumentals by the likes of
Perrey-Kingsley, the tracks are still pretty cheesy vehicles for flighty Moog sounds. The bonus tracks are the 1974 non-LP single "Doctor Music" and "Velvet Moon," whose source is undocumented in the packaging of this reissue. ~ Richie Unterberger