BBC Radiophonic Workshop ‎– "The John Baker Tapes Volume 2 (1963-75) (Trunk Records ‎– JBH029CD) 2008

I suppose the label this was released on should have been called 'drunk' not 'Trunk' records, as Radiophonic Workshop stalwart John Baker was probably drunk while he made the majority of these novel advert jingles and TV soundtracks.
Compared to his colleagues John was firmly on the musicianly side of composition,and also firmly in the Novelty music section of the workshop. Whereas Delia Derbyshire could make her doomy atmospheres, and Brian Hodgson could spent all his time making weird noises,John was lumbered with making funny tunes from varispeeded shampoo bottle pan pipes for a daytime childrens science programme. No wonder he turned to the evil drink.....but then again so did Delia. Although Delia couldn't keep up with Johns voracious appitite for consuming reams of cigarettes and therefore lived a few years longer.
Delia left in 1973 because the electronics were getting too easy and more conventional, but John Baker was sacked for being Drunk most of the time. The last recording he made before his descent into the dark realms of alcoholism was done at home on his piano in 1975(included here)...probably just before he sold it to buy more booze.He never made music again and died, age 60, in 1997.


Tracklist:

1 – Tempo Counter 0:04
2 – Get Happy 3:54
3 – Electro-Twist MQ LP1/1 1:23
4 – Electro-Suspense MQ LP1/2 1:27
5 – Electro-Rhythm MQ LP1/3 1:23
6 – Electro-Slow MQ LP1/4 1:33
7 – Boy On A Bicycle 4:03
8 – Brass Bandied MQ LP14/1 1:17
9 – Brass Widow MQ LP14/2 1:38
10 – Omo And Giro Adverts 1:20
11 – I Wanna Hold Your Hand Medley 2:33
12 – Electro-Auto MQ LP35/1 1:29
13 – Electro 5/4 MQ LP35/2 1:30
14 – Electro Waltz MQ LP35/3 1:28
15 – Johnny Johnson Jingles 1:25
16 – 1980s Feedback Loop 0:04
17 – Requioso - PIL 9011 2:21
18 – JB Dubs 1:13
19 – Out Of Nowhere 5:23
20 – Electro-Beat MQ LP19/1 1:30
21 – Electro-Weird MQ LP19/2 1:24
22 – Electro-Fugue MQ LP19/3 1:14
23 – Electro-Aggression MQ LP38/1 1:57
24 – Electro-Tension MQ LP38/2 2:27
25 – Jazz Advert 1:38
26 – Brylcreem 0:30
27 – John Baker Goon Advert 0:34
28 – Power Source MQ LP39 3:23
29 – 1980s Tape FX 0:42
30 – Pots 'N' Pans MQ LP48/1 3:24
31 – Banshee Boogie MQ LP48/2 1:45
32 – Feedback MQ LP48/3 2:58
33 – Space Workshop MQ LP48/4 3:12
34 – Piano Concrete MQ LP48/5 2:55
35 – JB Test Tone 0:08
36 – Piano Strokes 2:25
37 – JB At Home On The Piano 0:51
38 – Brief Lives - JB Obituary 1:47
39 – JB 78 RPM - All The Things You Are 2:26

DOWNLOAD some sober sounding novelty tunes HERE!

John Baker / BBC Radiophonic Workshop ‎– "The John Baker Tapes Volume 1 - rare and unreleased recordings 1963-1974" (Trunk Records ‎– JBH028CD)

John Baker, was a scumbag who lived at the shitter end of my street when I was vilified for daring to win a place at Grammer skool.Being called intelligent was as good as wearing a sign saying 'please kick my head in' for us unfortunate members of the underclass from the oxygenated end of the gene pool. The 'Bakers' all had scoliosis, the word 'Shithouse' was written in dripping black gloss on their toilet door,the eldest male was nick-named 'Igor',and they had a predeliction towards violence and criminal behaviour in general.
The John Baker responsible for the music on this CD, however, didn't live on my street as a kid growing up, but he was an unnamed member of the household through his prolific production of TV Theme tunes and Radio jingles throughout the sixties, seventies and no further, after he got the sack in 1974.
A contemporary of the legend that is Delia Derbyshire, he brought musicianly technique into the Workshop, as well as forty fags a day...thats cigarettes to you americans. He filled the vacancies for the Jazz Musician of the group, as well as the chain smoker. I'm also sure he joined in on the heavy wine consumption that the workshop was also renowned for,especially as wine bottles with various levels of liquid in them were an essential sound source for the staff to record and manipulate.
Many of those bottles no doubt found their way onto many of these jolly little tunes.
John,like Delia,died early from heavy cigarette and Alcohol comsumption in a confined space for too long a period. 
After becoming an alcoholic, Baker recorded no further music after being sacked by the Radiophonic Workshop and later died in poverty.......a life summed up in one dismissive sentence!?
He deserves more than that,thats why we've have three John Baker retrospectives lined up to revive the forgotten man of the Radiophonic Workshop's tarnished reputation.
This John Baker died while the scummier John Baker with the bad posture probably still lives,just, on my childhood street,and 'Shithouse' is probably still written on the toilet door.The wrong one died young,there's still time for that to be put right,if it hasn't been already?But,Justice is something that is rarely doled out fairly in this cruel world.
PS...Igor still lived,by the way, because i saw him down the pub on the night Leicester City won the League Cup back in '97....he gave me a HUG(?).Ahhhh,Association Football....the great leveller!?

Tracklist:

1 Newstime BBC 1+2 0:23
2 Tros Y Gareg (Main Theme) 2:50
3 Tros Y Gareg (Idents) 0:20
4 20th Century Focus 2:22
5 Vendetta: The Ice Cream Man 1:18
6 Woman's Hour (Reading Your Letters) 1:47
7 Many A Slip 0:57
8 Look And Read 0:35
9 Building The Bomb 6:24
10 Au Printemps 2:27
11 Big Ben News Theme 0:33
12 Codename 1:03
13 Decimal Currency 0:20
14 Barnacle Bill 0:21
15 Dial M For Murder 2:25
16 Farm Management 0:30
17 Radio Sheffield (News Idents) 0:45
18 French Science And Technology 0:39
19 Good Morning Wales (Idents) 0:37
20 Heavy Plant Crossing 0:59
21 COI Technology Pavilion 9:30
22 John Baker Interview (Radio Nottingham) 2:33
23 Radio Nottingham Idents 0:34
24 Look North: Newstime 0:50
25 Man Alive: UFO 1:14
26 PM - Computers In Business 0:39
27 Submarines 1:59
28 Oranges And Lemons (Radio London) 2:36
29 Orbit 0:47
30 Places For People 0:47
31 Sling Your Hook 2:27
32 Suivez La Piste 0:49
33 Scene (Never Never) 1:40
34 Diary Of A Madman 3:54
35 The Two O'Clock Spot 0:58
36 Radio London: News Idents 0:25
37 The Caves Of Steel 3:11
38 The Locusts 0:45
39 Square Two 0:29
40 The Tape Recorder 1:11
41 Tom Tom (Theme) 0:42
42 Tom Tom (Idents) 0:15
43 Trial (Opening Theme) 0:35
44 Trial (Closing Theme) 1:22
45 Vendetta: The Sugar Man 2:01
46 Spin Off 0:21
47 Radiophonic FX C 0:10
48 Radiophonic FX A 0:54
49 Radiophonic FX B 0:35

DOWNLOAD the butcher the baker the candlestick maker of musique concréte HERE!

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop ‎– "Doctor Who - The Krotons" (Silva Screen ‎– SILCD 1371) 2013/1968

Patrick Troughton was the first Dr Who I remember, with his sinister swarthy looks and scruffy appearance.He was good.
This soundtrack thrust Radiophonic Workshop stalwart, Brain Hodgson, the inventor of the Tardis noise and therefore one of the greatest sound inventors this side of Godzilla, into the limelight.
Brian was certainly a noise manufacturer rather than a musician, so the sounds involved in these episodes lean firmly in the direction of Sound Effects,with no Tristram Cary to manifest some kind of aural narrative to frighten the shite out of our children.
However this would still constitute a serious piece of avant garde electronic music in its own right if it wasn't associated with a television show.'Serious Artists', to the man, never admit to watching Television,ever! Avant-Garde snobbism in action.Ahhh, what's the word now?....that's it!...TWATS!


Tracklist:

1 Doctor Who (New Opening Theme,1967) 0:52
2 The Learning Hall 2:40
3 Door Opens 0:36
4 Entry Into The Machine 1:33
5 TARDIS (New Landing) 0:18
6 Wasteland Atmosphere 1:23
7 Machine And City Theme 1:49
8 Machine Exterior 1:43
9 Panels Open 0:17
10 Dispersal Unit 0:40
11 Sting 0:19
12 Selris' House 0:41
13 Machine Interior 1:16
14 Snake Bleeps Low 1:01
15 Silver Hose (The Snake) 0:45
16 Snake Bleeps High 0:30
17 Teaching Machine Hums 0:43
18 Forcefield 0:47
19 Burning Light 1:05
20 Birth Of A Kroton 1:10
21 Kroton Theme 2:13
22 Kroton Dies 0:34
23 Link - Rising Hum 2:04
24 Kroton Dies (Alternative) 0:19

DOWNLOAD the peoples avant garde HERE!

Tristram Cary, and The BBC Radiophonic Workshop ‎– "Doctor Who: The Daleks/The Dead Planet" (BBC TV) 1963

Ahhhh, at last it's Lustmord's new dark ambient album.......no.....wait!......the label says Its Trstram Cary's soundtrack to some television programme from the early sixties,made when Lustmord was still gestating. 
Yep,thanks to Doctor WHO , the BBC Radiophonic Workshop invented 'Dark Ambient' music as well as synth pop,popularizing Musique Concréte and many other means of sound production that the two Brians, Brian Eno and Brain Williams(lustmord), could have only dreamt of when this soundtrack was commisioned nearly sixty years ago!Cary is a greatly ignored God of electronic..err..music(?), no matter If you love or hate the TV programme, the sparse and carefully judged music adds so much menace and atmosphere to this already creepy episode that you are forgiven if you shit yourself...twice!
Doctor Who was a terrifying experience,especially in those monochrome days,but backed up by this creepy music it would have been too much for most children, and most adults, when broadcast at teatime on a saturday evening in the early Sixties. Both myself and Lustmord weren't even born when this Dalek story was first transmitted back in 1963.The world was just waking up to the simplistic jolly melodies of The Beatles,which when Juxtaposed with the sinister sounds of Britains most popular Science Fiction show must have sounded like nursery ryhmes.....no wonder everybody loved 'em?! 
Doctor Who sounded like real life,whereas Those loveable Moptops represented the average person's dreams and aspirations.....love, money,fame, things.....there was none of this stuff on Planet Skaro;just death,repression, fear,radiation, pollution,mutations and disease.....just like modern Earth I hear you say? Indeed, I think the Daleks are a visual metaphor for our future,and Skaro is the future Earth. A stark warning going unheeded. Just listen to the opening Dalek Speech,then contrast and compare that with whats happening today.....

"Look, The Disease has reached us in Here!" says Dalek no.1.
" Is This The End Of The Daleks?", inquires Dalek 2 demurely,.
"We need radiation to survive!" emphasises a now panicing Dalek number 2.
"We will have to explode another Neutron Bomb!",offers Dalek 1.

If that conversation hasn't taken place already in the Whitehouse Bunker then I'm a Dutchman!? (said in a Dalek Voice.....which was achieved,incidently by speaking through a BBC ring modulator.)
I can see that in the near future, when the world population consists of just a few thousand Dalek-like Cyborgs of rich people,who exist on a radiation scorched planet Earth after the MacDonalds sponsored robot wars of the mid-twenty-first century.After the sucessfull invasion of China....the chinese Robots used used cheaper components without full warranty.....the Cyborg elite,all speak with the only voice unit available......oh no, please exterminate us now.....the only human voice we will hear in the future will be a cross between the Daleks Ring-Modulator chic, and Donald Trump's monosylabic anglo-stoopid.Even the Bill Gates and George Soros cyborgs will speak with his voice....I think there will be another war after the next one,consisting largely of suicidal Dalek types,embracing death to get away from the monster that is 'The Donald',who changed his name to 'Davros' creator of the Human Daleks....this is just the start of a very long ending maaaaan!

Just like Donald L.Trump becoming president was predicted on The Simpsons, the Trump inspired fate of our planet was predicted by Dr Who and Tristram Cary provided the soundtrack to it.
He knows what scares you, children. Uncle Tristram KNOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!......and I'm not just referring to the unmade Science Fantasy movie called "President Donald L.Trump"!?
If that script was offered to the BBC as an episode of Dr Who, it would have been rejected as "Highly Unlikely".....yes the Existence of Cybermen was once thought of as more likely than Donald Trump becoming leader of the Western World!....Uncle Donald knows what scares you and your children kiddies...Uncle Donald KNOWS!!!!!!!!!...sadly Tristram Cary is no longer with us to provide the soundtrack.......maybe Kanye West will do it?....now that is truly HORRIFIC!!!!!!!

DOWNLOAD from planet skaro HERE!

Tristram Cary - "Soundings: Electroacoustic Works 1955-1996" (Tall Poppies -TP139) 2005

Tristram Cary was among the earliest electro-pioneers.He worked as a radar engineer in World War II and at this time conceived ideas of early electronic and tape music. After the war he developed his first electronic music studio and studied composition, piano, horn, viola and conducting at Trinity College of Music in London. He became well known for his music for several episodes of 'Doctor Who', and for his music for many films,among them the fantastic 'Lady Killers'(the Alec Guiness Version NOT the shite Tom fucking Hanks/american version),which was his big break. 
Cary was also responsible for a number of 'Firsts' in Electronic Music,as co-producer of the first concert of live computer music at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in 1968,he was also a partner in EMS' production of the 'Putney', one of the first generation of synthesizers,and made the music for 'The Children of Lir' (1959), the first major BBC television program with an entirely electronic score.
'Soundings' includes music Cary composed with makeshift WWII surplus in the 1940s, with the first tape recorders in the 1950s, with analog synthesizers in the 1960s and 1970s, and with computer-based systems between 1979 and 1996. It includes Cary's deeply affecting music for the radio version of Ray Bradbury's 'Leviathan 99' (1972) .Also 'Birth is Life is Power is Death is God is ...' (1967), a major concert work which integrates electronic sounds, recorded sounds, and sounds of musical instruments drawn from Cary's soundtrack to a film shown at the British Pavilion at EXPO '67 in Montreal. It includes 'Soft Walls' (1980), an early work for Synclavier; excerpts from 'The Impossible Piano (Homage to CN') (1994), a tribute to Conlon Nancarrow for sequencer and sampled piano. And it includes 'Continuum' (1969); '3 4 5 - A Study in Limited Resources for Stereo Tape' (1967); 'Suite - The Japanese Fishermen' (1955 / 1996); 'Stream Music' (1978); 'Nonet' (1979); 'Soft Walls' (1980); 'Sine City II' (1979 / 1996); 'The Clockpieces' (1983/1996), and 'Trellises' (1984). Also: 'Black, White & Rose', for marimba, gongs, woodblocks and tape (1991) and 'Narcissus', for flute and two tape recorders (1968); with performances by Ryszark Pusz (percussion) and Douglas Whittaker (flute).
Basically Tristram was there from the year zero of musique Concréte,early electronics,all the way through the dawn of the Synthesiser, to Computer music to sampling.He did it all,and fitted in a few works for Doctor Who as well!?

Tracklisting:

DISC ONE: Analogue Works 1955-1978 

Continuum

Suite - Leviathan '99

345 - A Study in Limited Resources for Stereo Tape

Suite - The Children of Lir

Birth is Life is Power is Death is God is ...

Suite - The Japanese Fishermen

Narcissus (Flute: Douglas Whittaker)

Steam Music 

DISC TWO: Music for Computer 1979-1996 

Nonet

Soft Walls

Sine City II

Black, White & Rose (Percussion: Ryszard Pusz)

Three Clockpieces

The Impossible Piano 

DOWNLOAD some sound soundings HERE!

Tristram Cary ‎– "Trios - Live Performance Electronic Music(Trios for synthi VCS3 and turntables)" (Electronic Music Studios Limited) 1971

L-R Robert, Tristram,John, Charlotte and Doris Cary entertaining themselves with some light electronic experimentation of an evening in their suburban abode.

While America were polluting our delicate young minds with atrocious propaganda like The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, The Osmonds, and the acceptable(in the 70's) face of child sexual abuse,The Jackson 5. Britain, had the Cary Family, making Abstract avant-Garde Electronic music for adult kids who didn't know that dancing could be fun, and rhythm can only exist if worked out on a computer. The biggest difference between the Cary's and the Jacksons,apart from, hopefully, the lack of sexual abuse; was the cavernous difference in record sales.....as the Jacksons sold only a few million copies of their works and the Cary's sold even less,something like 250,no not 250 thousand.....two hundred and fifty,give or take the odd warped copy?
Well, us intellectuals (wink wink), know that shagging your kids is wrong, and that dancing makes one look like a fool. Self-consciousness is a lingering symptom of intelligence,so its good to let yourself go every now and again, no-one's gonna be watching you......then you look up after recreating John Travolta's famous strutting dance scene from Saturday Night Fever, and find out that they ARE looking at you.....and quite correctly, Laughing!?
You're on much safer ground with a huge synthesizer,a computer,a locked door and a few turntables.
"TRIOS" was first performed at the Cheltenham Festival......I assume that's the famous Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival? In which case I would love to see some film of hundreds of Drunken Irish race goers encountering this stuff for the first time; a far better audience to encounter than preaching to the converted,chin-stroking massive on the South Bank,or the Rives Gauche. Intellectual Ghetto's are not to be encouraged......so lets form one?
Tristam handled the VCS3, and his sons,John and Robert, did the turntablism.....I'd like to think that Charlotte and Doris got their tuppenny's worth in also?
The VCS3, I imagine was supplied by Tristram's partner in the EMS record label, inventer Peter Zinovieff,who created some of the wildest Synthesizers known to man.
All the tracks are rather short excursions into bleepy knob twisting territory, giving Napalm Death a run for their money in how to fit in as many tracks as possible on a 33rpm 12 incher,.....although there's nothing here to rival Napalm's one second magnum opus, "You Suffer",a classic of any genre may I suggest?

Tracklisting:

Untitled 1-32

DOWNLOAD the tristram cary family band HERE!

Peter Zinovieff ‎– "Electronic Calendar - The EMS Tapes(1964-79)" (Space Age Recordings ‎– ORBIT015CD) 2015

Minted Inventor,and early electronicist,Peter Zinovieff, is one history's most enigmatic and influential electronic music composers. The EMS Tapes is the a complete retrospective of his earliest experiments in 1965 through to the dissolution of his studio and the bankruptcy of his company, EMS Synthesizers, in 1979.
In 1964 Zinovieff sold his wife's wedding tiara,we've all got one of those stuffed in a cupboard...haven't we?... to purchase the first computer housed on a private estate and converted his garden shed into the most advanced music studio in the world, housing 384 oscillators, as well as a collection of filters, noise generators, ring modulators, signal analyzers, and amplifiers. The center of the studio was the computer, which ran on a massive 8kb of memory priced at £1 per byte (£8000), allowing thousands of musical parameters to be sequenced several thousand times per second. Throughout the 1960s and '70s Zinovieff's studios became a place of pilgrimage for musicians looking to discover previously unheard sounds;like famous ideas leeches David Bowie, Paul McCartney, and Pink Floyd.  Other less vampire like visitors included Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, King Crimson, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, to name-drop but a few.

Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop,were regular visitors from 1966 to 67,as they and Zinovieff formed what was probably the first Electronic group, called, catchily, Unit Delta Plus.Which performed at a few of those Psychedelic happenings such as "The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave" in '66,with various Beatles hanging on to try and nick some ideas.
The Electronic Calendar begins with "Chronometer '71," composed in the form of a graphical score by Harrison Birtwistle and created from recordings of Big Ben and the Wells Cathedral clock, sequenced by Zinovieff's computer to a pre-determined structure that controlled tape machines in a system resembling an early sampler. The piece was created in the second iteration of Zinovieff's studio, which was also home to the world's first series of narrow filter bands used as a sound analysis system, recording the response of each filter to the applied signal; Zinovieff had created the world's first vocoder. The second disc opens with Zinovieff's interpretation of "Agnus Dei," followed by "ZASP," a collaboration with Alan Sutcliffe. In 1967 "ZASP" won second prize at the IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) Congress; Iannis Xenakis beat it out for first place. The CD closes with the last piece of music recorded in the EMS studio before it was destroyed by a flood in 1979; aptly titled "Now's the Time to Say Goodbye," it features interview fragments of Zinovieff fading in and out.
Synth Pop this ain't. 

Tracklisting:

Disc One:

01.  - Chronometer '71
02.  - Birthday Song
03.  - Four Interludes for a Tragedy
04.  - Glass Music
05.  - Tristan (Short Section)
06.  - China Music
07.  - Tristan (Long Section)

Disc Two:

01.  - Agnus Dei
02.  - Zasp Parts 1 to 3 (with Alan Sutcliffe)
03.  - Un Known 1
04.  - Tarantella
05.  - Un Named 1
06.  - January Tensions
07.  - June Rose
08.  - Un Named 2
09.  - A Lollipop for Papa
10.  - M Piriform (with Justin Connolly)
11.  - March Probabilistic
12.  - Un Named 3
13.  - Raasay Digitised....missing track reupped.click here
14.  - Now's the Time to Say Goodbye

DOWNLOAD january the first on the electronic calender HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "Test Card Classics: The Girl The Doll The Music" (Flyback ‎– FBCD 2000) 1996

This is musical Heroin for me.
Like lying back in your mothers arms,unless your mother was a violent alcoholic of course, and having all those shitty adult problems melt away like plastic earmarked for recycling in a council incinerator.
This takes me back to those days off sick,when one was left at the mercy of daytime television,or lack of it back then,or when I bunked off school to avoid a test or the shower after basketball,or just to avoid the horrible sport of Basketball itself; then came home when the parents were at work and there was fuck all to do!...so we watched the Testcard!? Which was the equivalent of watching something like "Celebrity Love Island" today, but more entertaining, and lacking the suicides.
Those of you who came from countries with no public service broadcasting organisations will not understand......and that's ok.I won't hold it against you;but here's your chance to catch up.
Basically,You haven't lived until you've bounced yer booty to "Holiday Highway" by the Stuttgart Studio Orchestra.
And the Nu-Right wanna shut the BBC down????....leaving us at the mercy of Facebook and the Flat Earth Anti-vaxxers!.....i'm sure that's an actual band????

Notes for the average Test Card enthusiast:

Compilation of test card music as used by the BBC between 1966-1984. Previously unreleased original recordings.

Tracks 1, 9, 12, 16, 19, 21 and 24 are in mono.
Track 1: Spoken.
Track 2: BBC1/2 1969-84
Track 3: BBC2 1967-74
Track 4: BBC2 1968-72
Track 5: BBC1 1968-84
Track 6. BBC1 1968-71
Track 7: BBC2 1972-75
Track 8. BBC2/1 1967-84
Track 9: BBC1/2 1968-71
Track 10: BBC2 1968-72
Track 11: BBC1 1971-72
Track 12: BBC1 1968-71
Track 13: BBC2 1967-74
Track 14: BBC1/2 1969-74
Track 15: BBC2/1 1968-84
Track 16: BBC1 1969-71
Track 17: BBC1/2 1968-75
Track 18: BBC2 1967-74
Track 19: BBC1 1966-72
Track 20: BBC1 1968-71
Track 21: BBC1 1968-70
Track 22: BBC2 1967-74
Track 23: BBC2 1968-72
Track 24: Tone used on BBC2

Dates diven above are first and last years of transmission, not necessarily consecutively.

Tracklist:

1–John Ross-Barnard -Introduction 0:07
2–The Stuttgart Studio Orchestra -Royal Daffodil 2:17
3–The Westway Novelty Ensemble -Riga Road 2:10
4–The Oscar Brandenburg Orchestra -Angry 3:16
5–The Stuttgart Studio Orchestra -Capability Brown 3:33
6–Unknown Artist -BBC Chimes 0:10
7–The Cavendish Ten -Waltz In Jazztime 2:44
8–The Benito Gonzalez Latin Sound -Bella Samba 2:14
9–Unknown Artist BBC Chimes 0:10
10–The Stuttgart Studio Orchestra -Holiday Highway 2:40
11–Orchestra Heinz Kiessling -Cordoba 2:56
12–The Oscar Brandenburg Orchestra -My Guy's Come Back 2:40
13–The Langford Orchestra -The Lark In The Clear Air 2:25
14–Unknown Artist -BBC Chimes 0:10
15–The New Dance Orchestra -Pandora 2:43
16–The Fernand Terby Orchestra -Firecracker 2:42
17–Unknown Artist -BBC Chimes 0:09
18–Stuttgart Studio Orchestra -Hebridean Hoedown 2:54
19–The Gerhard Narholz Orchestra -High Life 2:29
20–Orchestra Heinz Kiessling -Samba Fiesta 1:48
21–Stuttgart Studio Orchestra -Stately Occasion 3:02
22–Unknown Artist -BBC Chimes 0:10
23–Mr Popcorn's Band -Chelsea Chick 2:46
24–Roger Roger And His Orchestra -Greenland Sleigh Dogs 3:07
25–Unknown Artist -BBC Chimes 0:10
26–The Cavendish Ten -These Foolish Things 2:12
27–Stuttgart Studio Orchestra -March From "The Colour Suite" 3:12
28–Ensemble Roger Roger -Long Hot Summer 2:11
29–The Oscar Brandenburg Orchestra -Going Places 2:52
30–No Artist -440 Hz Tone 0:20

DOWNLOAD the music without the girl or the doll HERE!

BBC Radiophonic Workshop ‎– "Fourth Dimension" (BBC Records ‎– RED 93 S) 1973

Delia Derbyshire left the workshop in 1973,and a lot of the reason why is contained on this BBC album of local radio theme tunes and Testcard music.
The arrival of a couple of EMS synthesizers made it all too easy to create something musical,with a catchy tune.Just what der management would have wanted.No more weird noises made from tape loops and lamp shades.Horrific was replaced with 'Jolly'.....which is,for me probably even weirder than actual 'weird'.
The music is the stuff that filled up the empty spaces in the 1970's TV schedule.Incredibly,there was nothing on in the afternoon or morning.Briefly the news and childrens TV appeared at lunchtime,and increasingly programmes for schools filled the morning schedule,with creepy classics like "Picture Box",whose Theme Tune was one of the most sinister of the lot.....but that was on ITV,so it don't count!
The Testcard filled most of our days when bunking off school....we used to dance to this stuff,and howl with laughter at the more cheesier tunes. This was UK youths version of Martin Denny and Esquivel.This is why we are weird.
Now, if The Sex Pistols did a testcard style version of Never Mind The Bollocks for their second album,including "Belsen Was A Gas" as arranged by the producer of "Fourth Dimension" (Paddy Kingsland),they would have served us all up thee ultimate 'Punk' record,and hopefully saved us from the hoardes of 'Punx' who haunt us to this very day.
Why won't they fuck off mummy?

Now I've finished with my silly nostalgic opinions and analysis,I'll let the BBC explain it in their special no-nonsense terms from the Sleeve notes....I especially like how they explain away their rare use of Stereo on a BBC records release:

"Music heard on radio and Television (including Test Card Transmissions)....

One aspect of the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is the composition and realisation of signature tunes and incidental music for BBC Radio and Television programmes. Programme producers come to the Workshop with varying requests - it must be 'bright', 'catchy', 'sinister', 'modest', 'supernatural', 'funny', and so on but, most important, it must be unique in terms of sound qualities.
The composer then sets to work to create the tune using natural sounds, which have been manipulated in some way and cut together on tape, or electronic sources, such as the voltage controlled synthesiser.
Several such signature tunes are included on this record, composed by Paddy Kingsland, who joined the creative staff of the Workshop in 1970. Before this, he worked as a tape editor, then studio manager, chiefly for Radio One. He is a firm believer that instrumental sound combined with electronic and treated sound is essential for this type of work. The tracks on this record include compositions for Radio 1, 3, 4, Local Radio and Television programmes.
The synthesisers used on this disc are both British, and both made by E.M.S. of London. They are the VCS3, an amazingly versatile miniature synthesiser, and its big brother, the Synthi '100', known within the Radiophonic Workshop as 'The Delaware', after the address of the Workshop. This machine incorporates a digital memory that can be programmed via a conventional keyboard, and can store 256 events on 3 layers in any one 'run'. In combination with the multi-track tape recorder, it provides all the facilities of an electronic music studio, its range being limited only by the imagination of the person using it.
The specially created stereo is not an attempt at realism, but is used as a sound object in its own right."


Tracklist:

1.Scene & Heard (Radio 1)
2.Just Love (BBC TV)
3.Vespucci
4.Reg (BBC African Service)
5.Tamariu (BBC TV)
6.One-Eighty-One (Radio 4)
7.Fourth Dimension (Radio 4)
8.Colour Radio (BBC Radio Leeds)
9.Take Another Look (Radio 4)
10.Kaleidoscope (Radio 4)
11.The Space Between (Radio 3)
12.Flashback

DOWNLOAD from the fourth dimension of sound...easy listening...HERE!

Michael Barton of BBC Radio Sheffield ‎– "Children Talking" (Music For Pleasure ‎– MFP 1224) 1968

Another gem from the wonderful BBC, the home of 'Fake News' according to the Child in the oval office, is this vintage recording of children from generation X,when innocence still reigned.
This album has been roundly pillaged by Aphex Twin for samples, so here's your chance to find your own. 
The wisdom of the 'Children of Top People', is the Das Kapital' of Trumpism. They are not quite as monosyllabic as the small handed pink one, but their politics seemed far advanced and sophisticated to that of the Donald himself.
Michael Barton himself,has the manner of questioning that would probably get more of a civilised response from Trump,with his childrens television style of gentle interrogation.He would be labelled 'real News',until the Trumpster found out he was from an intelligent broadcasting body.He knows that 'BBC' spells DANGER!...or even worse a person with a brain is asking him questions.....panic...get angry!
"Children Talking volume 2" would be contrived of snippets from Trump and his moronic followers answering questions about life's fundamental questions....trouble is it may well be X-rated,and should be avoided to lessen potential damage to brain cells.
One day we'll wake up from this nightmare.


Tracklist:

A1 Where Do Babies Come From? (North Wales)
A2 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (Children Of 'Top People')
A3 Ambition (The East End Of London)
A4 School Life (Newcastle)
A5 Life In Hospital (Leeds)
A6 The World Of Grown-ups (Manchester)
A7 Weddings (Nottingham)
A8 Running The Home (Sunderland)
B1 The Royal Family (Northern Ireland)
B2 God And The Bible (Crawley)
B3 What Would You Like To Be? (Manchester)
B4 Dreams (Liverpool)
B5 Getting Into Trouble (Burnley)
B6 Christmas Nativity Play (Sunderland)

DOWNLOAD the sound of president trumps mind HERE!

David Cain ‎– "The Seasons" (BBC Radio Enterprises) ‎– RESR 7) 1969

As you male supremacist obnoxious slobs are tired of the superior ladies of early electronica, we return to an unsung collegue of Delia Derbyshire in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, David Cain, and rebalance the history of electronic music back towards the male genome a little bit.
I was blessed to be of an age when the BBC was pumping out all sorts of weird noises to avoid having to pay any jumped-up composer types to make some music for them. Being tight is often an underrated creative tool,and this tool was probably responsible for the wave of British synth-pop a decade later, that swept over the planet....be that a good or bad thing, i'll leave it up to you.
No, not Kraftwerk, it was the BBC wot dunnit to you all. Gary Numan is on record as saying that he'd never heard,or heard of, Kraftwerk until after he hit the top ten. He was likely to have been subjected to drama classes directed by  records such as this,from BBC radio for schools.I can see the young Depeche Mode now ,interpreting this music under the strict coreography of the Drama teacher at whatever decaying Essex primary school they attended in the early seventies.
Personally,as a schoolboy, I was none too keen to describe the month of April using the medium of expressive dance, but the music was certainly inspiring,leeching into my brain and changing ones subconscious to unleash such related wierdness as Throbbing Gristle upon my unsuspecting parents;such was the effect of adolescence upon those BBC damaged synapses in ones developing Brane!
Of course, one never revealed that one liked anything the teachers would play us,or one would get a stiff taste of mob violence perpetrated by one's charming peers. Luckily the music we could admit to likeing was brilliant too, in a different way. Gary Glitter, The Sweet, T-Rex, Slade...they were acceptable;but Drama Workshop music...forget it,if you wanted some friends!...a few years later I didn't want any friends,and sank into a teenage world of depression and isolation,rejecting those dumb-ass peers who preferred "Northern Soul" to Punk Rock???..Uh?
BBC poet Robert Duncan,describes this time perfectly in his words for the piece on 'October'.....heavy stuff indeed for kids to ingest:

"Like Severed Hands, the wet leafs lie flat on the deserted avenue,
Houses like skulls, stare through uncurtained windows..."

To describe this state sponsored experimental music some more,here's the sleeve notes:

In the Autumn of 1966 BBC Radio for Schools launched the first series of "Drama Workshop", a creative drama programme for children in their first and second years of secondary school.
The series was an immediate success and since then thousands of teachers and children all over the British Isles have become familiar with the warm voice of Derek Bowskill and the excitingly imaginative radiophonic music composed by David Cain. "Drama Workshop" is designed to stimulate dramatic dance, movement, mime and speech; and the improvisation of character and situation. Teachers have usually taped the broadcasts and then replayed them afterwards to their classes. Now, with this record, some of the most stimulating material from the current series is available in a permanent, easy to use form which will appeal not only to drama specialists in search of really original source material, but also to anyone who is concerned with creative education.
The poetry on this record is inspired by the seasons of the year. There are twelve poems on the months of the year by Ronald Duncan, as well as four pieces by Derek Bowskill on the seasons themselves. In each case the radiophonic theme is heard first, then the poem itself spoken over variations on the theme and finally the variations on their own.
The final musical item on the record represents the whole year. It states all the 12 themes for the months, followed by 4 sections for the seasons and concludes with a march which draws the various themes together, with some subtle and unusual key changes.
In this way teachers can use the poems for listening and discussion amongst the class, and the music separately for movement and dramatic dance improvisation. Other activities such as music-making, painting and writing may also follow from listening to this record. But however many educational applications are found for the contents, if you enjoy poetry or music you will enjoy this record.

Dickon Reed

...Dickon?????...certainly a posh bloke,as were most of the BBC staff,but even posh blokes get it right sometimes.What we now call the 'Joe Strummer Syndrome'.

Tracklist:

1 January 2:09
2 February 2:27
3 March 5:09
4 April 2:24
5 May 3:08
6 June 2:29
7 July 2:24
8 August 1:49
9 September 2:04
10 October 2:11
11 November 3:03
12 December 2:36
13 Spring 1:54
14 Summer 1:54
15 Autumn 1:46
16 Winter 2:07
17 The Year 4:24

DOWNLOAD the four seasons without the horrible falsetto of Frankie Valli HERE!

Clara Rockmore ‎– "The Art Of The Theremin" (Delos ‎– DEL 25437) 1977

The first electronic instrument was ,of course, the Theremin, as created by Russian inventor,and Stalin Prize winner, Léon Theremin in 1920.Originally he called it by the less egocentric titleage of "The ætherphone", which I kinda like? A musical instrument for the modern era, as it involves no physical contact,and is therefore free of viral transmission drawbacks.It was also the result of Soviet sponsored research into proximity detectors....so electronic music is another thing we have to thank Communism for it seems?
Theremin also invented the drum machine, before he inadvisedly returned to the USSR in 1938.....some say he was kidnapped by the NKVD, which would explain a lot.
Anyhow, he had a glad eye for the ladies, and despite being turned down for marriage several times by the Lithuanian object of his desires, Clara Reisenberg became his Theremin virtuoso prodigy,and proceeded to tour america from coast to coast hulking her clumsy theremin around with her during the 1930's. She married into money,hence the Rockmore name, and continued pumping out a bunch of wobbly creepy classics to the public for fifty years or so,finally getting into a recording studio by 1977....et voila....this album was released.'Haunting' is the adjective frequently used when the Theremin is involved,and by jiminy it certainly is.Interpreting classical works by Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, and Tchaicovsky....in fact anyone russian it seems, in that spooky portamento style that is the trademark of the Etherphone.Clara Rockmore, although not a musical innovator herself as such, was indeed, the First Lady of Electronic music.
Apart from inventing the Drum Machine, Theremin's other talents included a fancy line in espionage and spying equipment,my favourite being 'The Thing',which was a listening device hidden in a replica of the Great Seal of the United States carved in wood. In 1945, Soviet school children presented the concealed bug to the U.S. Ambassador as a "gesture of friendship" to the USSR's World War II ally. It hung in the ambassador’s residential office in Moscow and intercepted confidential conversations there during the first seven years of the Cold War, until it was accidentally discovered in 1952.
Nice one Leon.

Tracklist:

1.Vocalise 3:46
2.Song Of Grusia 4:16
3.The Swan 2:56
4.Pantomime 3:45
5.Hebrew Melody 5:23
6.Romance 4:47
7.Berceuse 3:08
8.Habanera 2:42
9.Berceuse 4:14
10.Valse Sentimentale 2:06
11.Sérénade Mélancolique 7:39
12.Chant Du Ménestrel 3:58

DOWNLOAD these wobbly classics HERE!

Louise Huebner with Bebe and Louis Barron ‎– "Louise Huebner's Seduction Through Witchcraft" (Warner Bros. - Seven Arts Records ‎– WS 1819) 1969

Louise Huebner was the 'Official' Witch of Los Angeles and the only officially appointed Witch in the entire world.This is of course 'showbiz' rather than a real office for a real witch. Witches only exist in their own minds,possibly,and in the minds of the superstitious morons who fear the 'Dark Arts',or believe in any supernatural entities such as the Easter Bunny, or Batman.
This album, primarily existing purely to exploit the age-old problem of getting laid, is the feminine version of Eric Weber's "Picking Up Girls Made Easy", this witchy one relies on manipulation whereas Eric relies on barefaced lying.
That said, the main reason for this Occult cash-in attempt being foisted on these reveered pages, is because the creepy sounds backing up Louise's very silly spoken instructions were made by husband and wife Electronic pioneers, Louis and Bebe Barron.
It's rather good stuff, and inevitably reminds one of Throbbing Gristle's finer ambient moments, and very reminiscent of Kluster's first two albums. 
For those of you sad bastards who think you're gonna prize Beyoncé from Jay Z's insideous grasp; just try developing an interesting line in conversation and washing regularly.Dump the sports clothes and improve your sartorial elegance....in fact making an effort to seem attractive and interesting rather than the obnoxious slob you really are.Then you won't need to sell your soul, or our-soul, to get a girlfriend, who, ultimately, won't like your record collection.
Yours most insincerely, 
the Real Jay Zee.

Tracklist:

1.Introduction - Gods 3:40
2.The Self Fascination Ritual For Increased Power 3:11
3.The Isis Full Moon Ring For Magical Protection 3:34
4.The Demon Spell For Energy 3:26
5.Orgies - A Tool Of Witchcraft 3:38
6.Sun Sign Amulets For Spiritual Protection 4:11
7.The Coleopterous Charm For Romantic Adventure 3:10
8.The Turkish Bean Spell For Tender Love 2:31
9.Seduction Spells From Around The World 4:24
10.The Emotional Bondage Spell 2:35
11.The Earthquake Spell For Unwanted Lovers 2:24
12.Witches And Wizzards 4:24

DOWNLOAD using the witchcraft of modern science HERE!

Louis and Bebe Barron ‎– "Forbidden Planet OST" (Planet Records ‎– PR-001) 1956

Here's the one wot started it all!
The first fully electronic soundtrack,and the first electronic score commited to magnetic tape.For the early sci-fi flick "Forbidden Planet",starring that bloke,formerly known as Frank Drebbin from 'Naked Gun' and Doctor Rumack in 'Airplane', Leslie Nielsen,the master of deadpan, as the star,believe it or not!?
But, the relevant part is that one of the credited composers was Female.
"Bebe" Barron, or Charlotte May Wind, was a political science graduate who studied music composition in New York, where she met future hubby, Louis Barron,who habored a liking for messing around with electronic gear. They got married, and one of their wedding gifts was one of those new-fangled magnetic tape recorders. It all started there I guess,and they began experimenting and acquiring primitive electronic devices,which Louis modified for sound generation.

The cool couple themselves,surrounded by tech.

The first electronic music for magnetic tape composed in America,"Heavenly Menagerie" was completed by Louis and Bebe as early as 1950 ,using the slow and laborious methods of cutting and splicing the tape together.

They opened the first recording studio using tape in New York, and catered primarily for the Avant Garde. This is where they met John Cage, who collaborated with them and convinced them that what they were doing was actually 'Music', and not just a load of funny noises stuck together.

While Louis spent most of his time building the circuits and was responsible for all of the recording, Bebe did all the composing. She had to sort through many hours of tape. As she said, "it just sounded like dirty noise". Over time, she developed the ability to determine which sounds could become something of interest. Tape loops gave the Barrons' sounds rhythm. They mixed the sounds to create the otherworldly and strange electronic soundscapes we all know in the Forbidden Planet soundtrack.
I Dunno if this soundtrack was nominated for an oscar or not,but it had to wait twenty years before it got a vinyl release. I think the powers that be just saw all this stuff as sound effects rather than music. They never went back to the Barrons, and they gradually became as ignored as all of the other electronic pioneers were on this planet. Electronics used as music was the only Forbidden Planet in the arts of the 1950's.


Tracklist:

1.Main Titles - Overture 2:20
2.Deceleration 0:50
3.Once Around Altair 1:09
4.The Landing 0:40
5.Flurry of Dust - A Robot Approaches 1:09
6.A Shangri-La in the Desert / Garden with Cuddly Tiger 1:32
7.Graveyard - A Night with Two Moons 1:15
8."Robby, Make Me a Gown" 1:16
9.An Invisible Monster Approaches 0:46
10.Robby Arranges Flowers, Zaps Monkey 1:17
11.Love at the Swimming Hole 3:11
12.Morbius' Study 0:37
13.Ancient Krell Music 1:47
14.The Mind Booster - Creation of Matter 0:56
15.Krell Shuttle Ride and Power Station 2:31
16.Giant Footprints in the Sand 0:45
17."Nothing Like This Claw Found in Nature!" 1:23
18.Robby, The Cook, and 60 Gallons of Booze 0:56
19.Battle with Invisible Monster 2:50
20."Come Back to Earth With Me" 1:17
21.The Monster Pursues - Morbius Is Overcome 5:45
22.The Homecoming 1:56
23.Overture Reprise 2:13

DOWNLOAD this forbidden soundtrack HERE!

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)

DOWNLOAD and face it HERE!

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 - "Private Dreams And Public Nightmares" (1957)

Groundbreaking pre-Radiophonic Workshop experimental Radio from Daphne Oram and Frederick Bradnum. Introduced by producer Donald McWhinnie, in that cut-glass BBC accent that no-one in Britain is lumbered with anymore. Donald explains the horrific broadcast that would have sent most children of the era to hide in their room, and most normal vintage 1957 adults running for pen and paper to write a stiffly worded letter of complaint to the authorities.
It certainly is a creepy experience, even for the desentized minds of 2020. No-one was doing stuff like this in 1957.It's to the BBC's credit that they allowed this kind of experimentation to continue,although they also did very little to encourage it.
This programme was the pre-curser to Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange's fantastic "Inventions For Radio" from 1964/5.
As Donald said
“This programme is an experiment. An exploration. It’s been put together with enormous enthusiasm and equipment designed for other purposes. The basis of it is an unlimited supply of magnetic tape, recording machine, razor blade, and some thing to stick the bits together with. And a group of technicians who think that nothing is too much trouble – provided that it works.You take a sound. Any sound. Record it and then change its nature by a multiplicity of operations. Record it at different speeds. Play it backwards. Add it to itself over and over again. You adjust filters, echos, acoustic qualities. You combine segments of magnetic tape. By these means and many others you can create sounds which no one has ever heard before. Sounds which have indefinable and unique qualities of their own. A vast and subtle symphony can be composed from the noise of a pin dropping. In fact one of the most vibrant and elemental sounding noises in tonight’s programme started life as an extremely tinny cowbell.
It’s a sort of modern magic. Many of you may be familiar with it. They’ve been exploiting it on the continent for years. But strangely enough we’ve held aloof. Partly from distrust. Is it simply a new toy? Partly through complacency. Ignorance too. We’re saying at last that we think there’s some thing in it. But we aren’t calling it ‘musique concrète’. In fact we’ve decided not to use the word music at all. Some musicians believe that it can become an art form itself. Others are sceptical. That’s not our immediate concern. We’re interested in its application to radio writing – dramatic or poetic – adding a new dimension. A form that is essentially radio.
Properly used, radiophonic effects have no relationship with any existing sound. They’re free of irrelevent associations. They have an emotional life of their own. And they could be a new and invaluable strand in the texture of radio and theatre and cinema and television.”

DOWNLOAD for your own public dreams and someone else's private nightmares HERE!

Daphne Oram - "Still Point " (London Contemporary Orchestra July 11th 2016) 1948/2016

In 1948,yes,1948(!), whilst working as a radio programme engineer at the BBC, Daphne Oram began composing a new and highly innovative piece for double orchestra, entitled "Still Point". Oram was only 23 years old when she wrote Still Point, and the piece reflects her earlier experiences working under the glass dome of the Royal Albert Hall as bombs rained down over London. Bloody Nazi's!

Writing a piece like this would have labelled the composer 'degenerate' in Nazi Germany,and sealed a date with the mobile guillotine unit for a public execution......and this was years before 'nice German', Stockhausen had even touched a transistor. In fact transistors weren't even invented back then. This was done with vacuum tubes!?
Still Point is thought to be the earliest example of a composition specifying realtime electronic transformation of instrumental sounds, and in retrospect can be seen as decades ahead of its time with its explorations of space and acoustic architecture. And you all thought it was John Cage what dunnit first?
In the work the double orchestra is ‘acoustically treated,’ creating one ‘dry’ orchestra (using acoustic baffles) and one ‘wet’ orchestra, which are then manipulated live in performance through turntables, amplification and echo effects. Still Point was to be the last piece that Oram wrote for orchestra before she co-founded the BBC Radiophonic workshop in 1958, laying the roots for the new fields of British,and international electronic music that were to come.

Apart from some Theremin versions of the classics, this is the year Zero for electronic music, as performed by The London Contemporary Orchestra at the Deep 'Minimalism Festival", London, 2016, and in 2018 at the BBC Proms.

It was originally submitted to the BBC as a potential entry for the inaugural Prix Italia in 1950. However, it was turned down on the basis that the work could only be judged as a ‘straight score’ and the adjudicators wouldn’t understand the ‘acoustic variants and pre-recording techniques’ utilised. Brian Hodgson, a colleague at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, later commented to Oram that ‘if they had understood it, one feels they would have been even more ‘anti’!’.Thats the story of the BBC,even to this day.

Tracklisting:

1. "Still Point"(1948) (59:50)

DOWNLOAD from the event horizon of electronica HERE!