Thursday 14 May 2020

Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange -"Inventions For Radio No.3: The Afterlife" (1965)


The third in a cycle of inventions for radio by Barry Bermange, in collaboration with the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop.An attempt to reconstruct in sound the spiritualistic vision of Death and Eternity. It is conceived as a dream of Death. Using the montage process of the earlier programmes, 'The Dreams' and 'Amor Dei', the author has arranged in settings of electronic sound provided by the immortal Delia Derbyshire.A collection of voices of people who are now likely to have found out if their beliefs were correct,or have disappeared into the eternal darkeness and silence of oblivion. Recorded from life before death in four movements.
Its this kind of stuff that makes paying your taxes a pleasure.
If Kluster had made this in 1969,it would have been hailed as a proto-industrial masterpiece,and proof of how the Krautrockers invented Ambient.Nah! It all began here,with a bit of help from John Cage,Pierre Henry,Edgard Varese, and maybe Louis And Bebe Barron....but none of those got anywhere near the articulate structured brilliance of the Dr.Who theme from whence sprung electronic pop.

Tracklisting:

1.Death is Going from Shadow into Reality 7:41
2.It's Just Like Going to Sleep 11:09
3.Light. Everywhere is Light 10:27
4.Death is Just a Changing 10:37
5.The Afterlife (Extended ) 40:00

DOWNLOAD before you get to the afterlife HERE!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the DD and other electronic stuff from a Pauline Oliveros/King Crimson fan.

kevinesse said...

great! thanks again

dwvideo said...

Hey, thanks so much for all the 'women in electronic music' posts - absolutely brilliant.

ximeremix said...

These DD posts and all the women in electronic music posts have been wonderful. Thank you so much Jonny.

Jonny Zchivago said...

Of course there is more to come...i'm getting a bit re-obsessed by DD. Then of course we have her predecessor...Daphne Oram to follow that!

jazzfan1 said...

This series is just wonderful. The absolute nonsense that people believe. It certainly explains how Boris Johnson and Donald Trump rise to power, and how MAGA and Brexit take hold. ROFL!

Jonny Zchivago said...

@Jazzfan1....i dispair at humanity,which includes myself,and i've been accused of everything in these comments sections,from being a fascist,communist,racist,theif, morally bankrupt....and the latest was Trump supporter and Brexiteer!?....i'm usually the target for Brexiteers and Trump supporters...so thats a weird one.
But one place that is beyond criticism and stupidity is Inventions for radio by Barry Bermange..as they say in beebland....when really we're all here for Derbyshire.

Jim Holmes said...

Going to listen through these again while I wait for the Silva Screen vinyl boxset to turn up.

Jonny Zchivago said...

£240 quid....cheap at half the price!?

Did it turn up?