Saturday 13 June 2020

Desmond Leslie ‎– "Music Of The Future" (Musique Concrete ‎– MC 1001) 1960


Apart from inventing the multitrack mixing desk and being a close relation of Winston Churchill, World War Two Spitfire pilot Desmond Leslie, developed an interest in musique Concréte and electronic music shortly after the war had ended. He had his own little recording studio, and proceeded to make these sinister pieces of early electronic music, which found their way onto the soundtracks of a few terrible British Science Fiction movies, and even some early Dr Who soundtracks.
Leslie was probably most famous for punching theatre critic Bernard Levin in front of eleven million viewers during an edition of the live satirical TV show That Was The Week That Was in 1962. Ostensibly this was to protect the honour of his then-wife, Agnes Bernelle, in response to Levin's critical review of her show, Savagery and Delight.Levin was asking for it if you ask me....god knows what Bernie would have said about this....er...music?Or any of Leslie's science fiction novels and screeplays?
Hopefully, we will all get over that punch one day and laud Leslie for his remarkable achievements with music technology and his fantastically weird and forward looking music.


Tracklist:

Theme Music From The Film: The Day The Sky Fell In
A1 Play-In 0:26
A2 Destruction Of The Flies 4:46
A3 Invention Of The Weapon 0:45
A4 The Stranger 1:40
A5 The Stranger's Gift 1:05
A6 Finale And Play-out 1:51
Music Of The Voids Of Outer Space
A7 Asteroid Belt 2:21
A8 Mercury, Fleet Messenger Of The Gods 1:05
A9 Comet In Aquarius 1:30
A10 The Warhorns Of Mars 1:40
A11 Saturn-Chronos 4:13
Sacrifice, B.C. 5,000
B1 Dawn, Invocation 2:45
B2 Gathering Of The Elders 4:43
B3 Coming Of The Elementals, The Victim 6:47
Death Of Satan
B4 Esoteric Tone Poem 6:34

6 comments:

Vaykorus said...

THANKS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Anonymous said...

Am really loving your series on early electronics from the UK, but am shocked, yes, shocked, that you missed reference to Desmond Leslie's vital role as co-author with the one and only George Adamski of Flying Saucers Have Landed, an essential text of extreme ufology.

Noi Zee said...

If you're going - like a fart - in this general direction (and not fussed about staying strictly UK centric), I have four words : Karel Appel. Musique Barbare. That shit'll strip the paint off the walls, if you have any upcoming redecoration plans around the house.

Jonny Zchivago said...

Dear Anonymous ,I am sorry i didn't mention his Ufology books,but i just felt my write up was too conventionally fact based....surly you know i don' like too much of thqt stuff.....but yeah, the flying saucers have landed, great stuff. Benard Levin only referred to Leslie qfter the assault as a "Ufologist"

Jonny Zchivago said...

Karel Appel......an intense young man indeed.....coming up.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this. I just found out about this album because i am interested in ufology for many years. I am also electronic music fan and in recent years i am trying to grab any weird / important / classic (often forgotten) album from the early decades of electronic music. I am also (like that other anonymous) very surprised that you didn't mentioned about his ufology past. Maybe it's just us "ufo freaks" :)