Sunday 24 May 2020

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

2 comments:

ximeremix said...

Did you know Young Americans released the LP version of Oramics?

FiveGunsWest said...

These series of various experimental artists have been great. So much more interesting than other blogs.