Not of This Earth

This is the debut album, released by Relativity on 18 December 1986 and recorded in early 1985 as 88561-8110-2, ten tracks. Satriani ran up credit-card debt making it, and paid that off with the money from joining the Greg Kihn Band; CBS/SONY issued the Japanese edition on 1 September 1990 as CSCS-5264. In the liner notes Satriani introduces himself and the background to the record briefly, writing that his goal was to make a guitar record that would be enjoyed by all - not just a guitar-chops record but one with real music on it. He also promises a follow-up that will turn heads, drop jaws and create world peace in our lifetime. That became Surfing with the Alien in 1987. The drums are electronic rather than acoustic. The title track uses the compositional technique Satriani calls pitch axis theory, which shifts modes underneath a pedal tone - here, E. The Enigmatic uses the enigmatic scale, and Rubina is the first of two songs named after his wife, the other being Rubina's Blue Sky Happiness on The Extremist. The Headless Horseman is performed entirely with two-handed tapping and was revisited as Headless on Flying in a Blue Dream in 1989. The original cover art used for the first vinyl and CD editions was lost early on, and every release since 1988 has carried a different picture.