Friday 29 May 2020

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)


2 comments:

Spacious Specious said...

Thanks so much! I have the recentish compilations ("Electronic Works 1958-1995" and that "Svaevninger" album she did with Jacob Kirkegaard). Those left a strong impression due exactly to their subtlety. I'm looking forward to hearing these pieces.

Vaykorus said...

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