Half Machine Records are reissuing Italian composer Roberto Cacciapaglia's cult record The Ann Steel Album on vinyl. Originally released in 1979, it's a masterfully bizarre pop album with a misty eyed, future-thinking edge - its tracks work along the interface between human and machine, with percussion and sonic textures bringing to mind early music technology's attempts to replicate the sound of real instruments.

The Ann Steel Album was made in collaboration with an Italy-based American model (presumably the titular Ann Steel). Cacciapaglia cut, processed and layered her voice above his own instrumentals, her slightly removed, spaced out airs and graces generating further tension against their gloriously synthetic backdrops.

"In my music there is nothing to understand," said Cacciapaglia in a statement accompanying the album's release. "It is so superficial that I can’t find anything to say. My music is ingenuous, there is nothing inside it and it is for this reason that I like it. It can be listened to while sipping tea, watching television, or while speaking with a friend. Even in a moment when one has nothing to do or is bored, the music can be listened to attentively and millions of little changes can be discovered. It is certainly not the ideal music; it is just one type of music.

"The computer has been indispensable. It is a marvellously poetic instrument that evokes the beauty of the new technologic environment and it gives everything a great artificial taste of grand actuality. This music can be utilized in many ways and listened to by different people, which is what makes me happy because I want it to be accessible to everyone. I would like it to be even more simplistic, in fact, and my aspiration is to uncover it on a weightless day – so weightless, in fact, as to have it fly away like a balloon."

We've been given a streaming copy of the album - you can listen to it in full below. The reissue will be the first time the album has been available on vinyl since its very first pressing upon initial release.

Roberto Cacciapaglia - 'The Ann Steel Album' by halfmachine

You can order the album here. More information is available at the Half Machine site.