Various Artists ‎– "Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 1 (1955-1966)" (Composers' Voice ‎– CV 7803) 1978

On a purely Intellectual note to start off with......TeeHeeHeeeee......His name is Hans Kox...titter titter! Fnar Fnar Kyuk Kyuk!
Well, Hans off yer Kox now,and lets get serious.....Nah!
Like everywhere else,the Dutch think they invented Electronic music,and one has to say,they were pretty close to having a point.
The origin of Electronic music is almost as tiresome an argument as who invented Punk Rock.....but in Punk Rocks' case it was quite clearly England, Not Detroit,Not New York,Not Scotland...England,gottit?
As for coherent electronic composition, it seems,on the whole, to be a French thing, although it turns out that Daphne Oram of the BBC may have trumped Pierre Shaeffer,but it was kept traditionally  Hush Hush in that understated British way.We don't like show-offs over there  y'know?
One thing that the Dutch are world class at however, is Funny Names.

Hans Kox .....gaffaw gaffaw. laff laff!

Tracklist:

Studio Of The Netherlands Radio Union
A1 –Hans Kox - Three Pieces For Electronic Organ 3:48
A2 –Ton De Leeuw - Study 6:47
Studio Of Delft Technical University
A3 –Jan Boerman - Musique Concrète 3:04
A4 –Jaap Spek - Impulses 7:58
A5 –Rudolf Escher - The Long Christmas Dinner 6:15
Philips Studio
B1 –Henk Badings - Cain And Abel 8:57
B2 –Dick Raaijmakers - Piano-Forte 4:56
B3 –Ton De Leeuw - Antiphonie 15:17
Studio Of Utrecht University
C1 –Frits C. Weiland - Studie In Lagen En Impulsen 4:46
C2 –Hans Kox - Cyclophonie III 7:33
C3 –Tom Dissevelt - Fantasy In Orbit 3:05
C4 –Axel Meijer - Werkstuk-1964 2:32
C5 –Robbert Jan De Neeve - A.F. 1:17
C6 –Peter Schat - De Aleph 7:46
Studio Of Ton Bruynèl
D1 –Ton Bruynèl - Reflexen 4:34
CEM Studio, Bilthoven
D2 –Will Eisma - BTH. 3457 4:08
D3 –Klaus Gorter - K 45 5:40
D4 –Luctor Ponse - Etude-I 6:19
D5 –Berend Giltay - Polychromie-I 6:42

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Else Marie Pade ‎– "Face It" (Dacapo Records ‎– 8.224233) 1957-1970

Denmarks version of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was basically just Else Marie Pade, who made weird aural backing tracks for Danish Radiophonic plays.
Musique Concrete is very much in evidence for Symphonie Magnétophonique, but the Little Mermaid, is very much in the realms of Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshires work for the BBC. For us non-Danish speakers, it sound even weirder because of the narration of this Classical Danish fairytale,which sounds like someone speaking backwards to the average Anglo-Saxon ear.
Face It's title track is where it gets really weird,with some unknown Danish phraze concerning a certain ranting German dictator, repeated in a loop,with filtered extracts from one of Adolf's very nasty nazi rally speeches.This was a full decade before William Bennett decided to do the same thing, rather less subtly I may add, for his various Throbbing Gristle aping Come Org projects.Especially unsubtle were his remixes of Maurizio Bianchi's work
Else Marie got there first,and she even fought against the Nazi's in the resistance too,before GPO and Bennett were even a twinkle in their fathers eye,and still in short trousers when these recordings were made.Having said that, I severely doubt they ever heard any of Pade's work....even if they were Danish.


Tracklist:

1 Symphonie Magnétophonique (1958) 19:27
2 The Little Mermaid 42:54 (1957-8)
3 Face It 7:58 (1970)

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Else Marie Pade ‎– "Electronic Works 1958-1995" (Important Records ‎– IMPREC406) 2014

Denmark is famous for more than just great Bacon and Carlsberg lager isn't it?...well...er....no, but they did have another one of those female electronic music pioneers,who unwittingly was one of the few persons in the world making weird noises in the fifties.
A veteran of the noble Danish resistance in world war two, from a country that led the nazi-occupied world as an example in its zero levels of collaboration,and the sheltering of its jews; Else worked for the state sponsored Danish Broadcasting Corporation, where she produced very early groundbreaking electronic and concrete compositions for Radiophonic poems and Radio drama productions,like Faust,and the Little Mermaid.Rather like Daphne Oram had been doing in th UK.

Else in action manipulating something that looks rather like an electronic bra?..I notice in the fine tradition of female electronicists,she's got a cigarette on the go.

Like Daphne,and Delia Derbyshire,they were just seen as employees doing what they were told.....a job.Subsequently they were ignored and forgotten.That is,until the younger generations tried to discover the roots of this music,and find out where this music that dominates the modern world comes from.So, from the early 2000's onwards she was now rightly recognized as an electronic music pioneer during her lifetime.


Tracklist:

Faust Suite
Prolog I Himlen 4:18
Faust & Mefisto 6:59
Faust & Margrethes Kærlighed 7:22
Margrethes Fordømmelse 4:13
Rejsen Til Bloksbjerg Og Valborgsnat 8:25
Epilog 4:51

Lyd & Lys 4:41
Syv Cirkler 7:17
Etude 5:33

Illustrationer
Himmelrummet 6:53
Havkongens Slot 7:06
Alfeland 6:10
Kong Vinter 6:11

Glasperlespil I 7:42
Glasperlespil II 7:58

DOWNLOAD some sizzling danish electronics HERE!

Daphne Oram ‎– "The Oram Tapes: Volume One" (Young Americans ‎– YoungAm003CD) 2012

Yes, Daphne was mucking about with tapes and electronics since the early forties.
You could casually slip some of her works into an Industrial DJ set ,like the excerpt from "The Innocents"(1961) for example, and pass it off as unreleased Throbbing Gristle, or,Autechre, even Merzbow, and the kids would swallow it. The music's as weird as her image. It can sound like spy transmissions from behind the Iron Curtain, like those 'Numbers Stations', or proto-dark ambient, Industrial before Industrial, or the theme tune to a ventriloquists doll horror movie. The great Daphne was there first before anyone else,except maybe her peers in the French Musique Concréte movement:but that was certainly a thing of the Fifties,so maybe she invented that as well?

Daphne relaxing in her living room.

Naturally, as a female in a man's world, she never received any credit until around her death.Largely thanks to Pete 'Sonic Boom' Kember of Spacemen 3 etc(so he's gone up in my estimation), we now know about the dynamic duo of Delia and Daphne.
Here's hoping for a volume 2,as I am aware that there are many more hours of recordings in the Oram archive.
I've added a couple of bonus tracks featuring the first couple of electronic pieces Oram did for the BBC Drama department,so no complaints about strange running orders or anything please.

Tracklist:
1.Just For You (Excerpt 1) 3:00
2.Eton 2:00
3.The Innocents - Savage Noises (Excerpt) (1961) 3:20
4.Anchor Butter 0:40

5.Manchester 2 (1962)8:00

6.Wool (1967) 0:40
7.Oxford 12:57
8.Hydrogen Tones 3:30
9.2001 Effects Tape 1 2:52
10.2001 Effects Tape 2 5:23
11.Phensic (1961) 0:41
12.New Atlantis (1963) 6:03
13.Just For You (Excerpt 2) 1:13
14.Winters Journey (Intro) (1958) 0:14
15.Pulse Persephone (Alternate Parts For Mixing) 5:57
16.Light Music (Excerpt) 4:35

17.Stroke 5:53
18.Shell Flight (Excerpt) 0:27
19.Anacin Components 6:43
20.G.O.S. (Excerpt - 15" Tape Transferred At 7.5" Ps) 1:39
21.Costain Outtake 3:15
22.London University (Excerpt) (1968) 1:26
23.Encephalagraph 2:48
24.Anacin (Excerpt) 0:43
25.Hamlet - Youth Theatre (1963) 12:02
26.For Granada (1967) 1:00
27.Oramics Demonstration (Excerpt) 1:39
28.Electronic Sound Patterns (Excerpt) (1962) 0:48
29.Pure Tone Excerpts 1:07
30.Canadian Idyll 6:37
31.Hospital 3:29
32.Mermaid (Excerpt) 1:25
33.Shell 3:12
34.Illustrations (Fireworks / Hardwich High School) (1967) 2:43
35.Ursa Major (Outtake) (1962) 0:21
36.Ursa Major (Sun Mix) (1962) 3:14
37.Oddments (Excerpt) 1:22
38.Osram & Rank / Pulse Persephone Experiment (1963) 1:52
39.Pulse Persephone Pitch Experiment (1963) 1:02
40.Sardonica (Excerpt) 1:23
41.Progs (Excerpt) 1:22
42.Barclays Bank (Excerpt) 1:55

43.Amphitryon 38 (Bonus Track) (1957)

44.The Ocean (Bonus Track) with Desmond Briscoe (1957)
45.Speech Test 1:00

DOWNLOAD in volume HERE!

Daphne Oram ‎– "Oramics (1958-1977)" (Paradigm Discs ‎– PD 21) 2007

A rather groovy electronic gig from the very early sixties...just look at that kit!..In fact, just look at that audience!

Yes there was life before Delia Derbyshire.
The Great Auntie of Electronica, and co-founder of the much lauded BBC Radiophonic Workshop,was Daphne Oram, Who ,in 1942, was offered a place at the Royal College of Music but instead took up a position as a Junior Studio Engineer and "music balancer" at the BBC. One of her job responsibilities was "shadowing" live concerts with a pre-recorded version so the broadcast would go on if interrupted by "enemy action".Other job duties included creating sound effects for radio shows and mixing broadcast levels. During this period she became aware of developments in synthetic sound and began experimenting with tape recorders. Often staying after hours, she was known to experiment with tape recorders late into the night recording sounds on to tape, and then cutting, splicing and looping them, slowing them down, speeding them up, and playing them backwards.A BBC employee yes, but an enlightened employee.It was she who foisted the idea that the Beeb should use electronics to create an atmosphere for some of the plays she was involved with...you know like those foreign french types were doing with Musique Concrete and stuff? This was around the early fifties, after she had been experimenting with electronics and tapes throughout the 40's.She created an orchestral work entitled Still Point.This was an innovative piece for turntables, "double orchestra" and five microphones. Still Point was likely the first composition that combined acoustic orchestration with live electronic manipulation. However, as was usual it was rejected by the BBC and remained unheard for 70 years, until on 24 June 2016 when the London Contemporary Orchestra performed it for the first time!
The BBC continued to refuse to have anything to do with any of that new fangled foreign music rubbish, but Daphne continued to demand that she had her way, until they relented and allowed her and Desmonde Briscoe to form the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in a few rooms at Maida Vale Studios.
Although,after hearing some of the work produced by her contemporaries and being unhappy at the BBC music department's continued refusal to push electronic composition into the foreground of their activities, she decided to resign from the BBC less than one year after the workshop had opened, hoping to develop her techniques further on her own.
This became known as "Oramics", and she even invented her own Oramics machine,which involved a system from which electronic sound could be produced from drawn images.The Fairlight in the 1980's had some facility that allowed that using a lightpen, but Daphne was doing this decades before that,using a marker pen and 35mm film. The machine itself is now on display at the London Science Museum in perpetuity......alas,not in working order.
But, above and beyond all that technical genius and no nonsense female bloodymindedness, she had a great image. The Blitz-era perm, the horn-rimmed glasses,the floral dresses,and that piercing BBC announcers voice, the kind that makes us Beta-males stand to attention and do whatever she tells us to do.....which in our case would be to very fuck off......or in her era.....bloody bugger off you moron will you please?
All this stuff is as DIY as you can get.All the equipment is home-made,done by herself, in her home studio...which was more studio than home.All tracks are from the post BBC era 1958-1977, recorded in her Tower Folly studio in Kent.

Daphne outside her rather lovely studio

We need more modern electronic acts to look like her, and have the same Heath-Robinson look for their equipment.Then we'll probably start listening again.
A Daphne Oram Look-a-likey Party anyone? We could all dress as Dapne and dance to "Lego Builds It" all evening?....prizes will be given for the best glasses,best Dress,and Best Hair. A dance off will be held to find the best Dancer who will received a copy of Depeche Mode's debut single ("New Life" I believe?)signed by myself as Daphne Oram....yes alright I dress like Daphne Oram most evenings!...Got a problem with that????

Tracklist:

1-1 Introduction 3:33
1-2 Power Tools 0:44
1-3 Bird Of Parallax 12:58
1-4 In A Jazz Style 0:37
1-5 Purring Interlude 0:42
1-6 Contrasts Essconic 8:15
1-7 Lego Builds It 0:56
1-8 Pompie Ballet (Excerpt) 3:35
1-9 Intertel 1:20
1-10 Adwick High School No.1 0:46
1-11 Look At Oramics 0:38
1-12 Rotolock 1:27
1-13 Purple Dust 6:45
1-14 High Speed Flight 0:49
1-15 Studio Experiment No.1 1:48
1-16 Four Aspects 8:05
1-17 Kia Ora 0:47
1-18 Dr. Faustus Suite 9:36
1-19 Adwick High School No.2 2:17
1-20 Tumblewash 1:59
1-21 Studio Experiment No.2 0:41
1-22 Snow 7:46
2-1 Rockets In Ursa Major (Excerpt 1) 4:54
2-2 Food Preservation 3:20
2-3 Studio Experiment No.3 1:07
2-4 Bala 1:42
2-5 Episode Metallic 5:28
2-6 Studio Experiment No.4 0:39
2-7 Adwick High School No.3 1:35
2-8 Fanfare Of Graphs 0:57
2-9 Studio Experiment No.5 1:14
2-10 Brocilliande 10:11
2-11 Mary Had A Little Lamb 2:37
2-12 Incidental Music For Invasion (Excerpts) 5:04
2-13 Costain Suite 13:16
2-14 Rockets In Ursa Major (Excerpt 2) 1:22
2-15 Passacaglia 4:28
2-16 Missile Away 2:06
2-17 Pulse Persephone 4:02
2-18 Adwick High School No.4 2:17
2-19 Nestea 0:28
2-20 Rockets In Ursa Major (Excerpt 3) 3:28
2-21 Conclusion 0:11
2-22 Studio Jinks 6:08

DOWNLOAD right now young man,pay attention and listen! HERE!

Charlie Mingus and langston Hughes ‎– "The Weary Blues With Langston Hughes" (MGM Records ‎– E3697) 1958

Ouch! Me Brane 'urts.....we're drifting very dangerously near the jagged rocks of Hip Hop and its regrettable birth. 
Kool Kats rapping over a cool bebop soundtrack,talking not singing,was,without doubt the beginning of the most monotonous music ever to fuck you up the arse and describe the act as they're doing it to you......all in simplistic rhyming couplets to rub your face in it.
"Did I die and go to hell(?)", you scream.There's no need to go anywhere when the mountain can come to Mohammed. Satan brings Hell to your own doorstep,with free home delivery. Like Pollution, it gets everywhere,ain't going nowhere,and lowers your IQ.

Tracklist:

1.Hey (Night) / Too Blue / Ballad of the Fortune Teller
2.Commercial Theater 

3.The Weary Blues

4.Blues at dawn

5.Six Bit Blues
6.Morning After
7.Could Be / Bad Luck Card / Bad Man

8.life is fine

9.hey Hey Morn

10.Testament
11.Consider Me

12.Warning: Augmented

13.Motto / Dead in There

14.Final Curve

15.Boogie: 1 a.m.

16.Bedtime

17.Daybreak

18.Tell Me

19.Good Morning / Harlem

20.Same in Blues / Comment on Curb

21.Democracy / Island / extract from Warning: Augmented / Jump Monk

DOWNLOAD some proto-hip-hop weariness HERE!

Ken Nordine ‎– "Son Of Word Jazz" (Dot Records ‎– DLP 25096) 1958

As in the movie world,anything that has the prefix, "Son Of", in front of it, can not, after strict scientific observation, be as good as the original. Just the same as the suffix "2" for the follow up movie to a sucessful original. "Son Of Godzilla" isn't as good as "Godzilla" for example, and Jaws 2 is a desperate version of "Jaws"......don't even mention "Jaws 3D".
Word Jazz, has a "2", and a "Grandson of...." which aren't very good at all. The same applies to "Son Of Word Jazz". It's kind of  allllriiiight, but certainly lacking the quality of the stories /poems on the parent album;but, like "Son Of Godzilla" it has its good points. Such as the ludicrous noise that Baby Godzilla (Minilla) makes, and the bit when baby Godzilla gets a good kicking from some giant mosquitoes; "Son of Word Jazz has a poem called "I Used To Think My Right Hand Was Uglier Than My Left"
Of course,according to the Quantum physics' shadow universe theory, there's going to be some Nordine nut out there who thinks this is the best Word Jazz album. Just as your trusty scribe used to insist that "Son Of Godzilla" was the best Godzilla movie.....now i'm inclined towards "Godzilla Vrs Mechagodzilla"; so maybe its possible that I could do the same with the Word Jazz family? This is all classic quantum wave behaviour,so don't be alarmed.An alternative world exists where "Jaws 3-D" is generally regarded as the best movie ever made.... anywhere....in any time.Which is,of course, both correct and very,very, wrong at the same time.
The paradox that is Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of Hell", which is a truly awful insideous crime against humanity,should, under these theories, have a counterpart which is a work of musical genius.Confusingly what we got was "Bat Out Of Hell 2", which is an even worse heinous crime that could threaten even the fabric of space/time itself.The only way to stop this happening would be to put the matter, and anti-matter versions of Meat Loaf into a room so that they cancel each other out,anihilating each other out of existence.Therefore preserving the smooth function of particle physics and the balance of this observable universe for the forseeable future.

Tracklist:

A1 The Smith Family 1:59
A2 Miss Cone 2:43
A3 Outer Space 3:37
A4 Down The Drain 3:12
A5 Secretary 3:01
A6 Bubble Gum 2:36
B1 Looking At Numbers 2:21
B2 Anytime, Anytime 2:20
B3 I Used To Think My Right Hand Was Uglier Than My Left 2:15
B4 Lemming 2:18
B5 The Bullfighter 2:50
B6 Junk Man 4:35

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