A Sound British Adventure

If you're quick you might still get to listen to A Sound British Adventure, on the BBC Radio 4 iPlayer. Presented by Stewart Lee ("the only person the BBC could find, with a radio-friendly voice, who had actually been to a Stockhausen concert"), it focuses on the post-war years when a cottage industry of electronic musicians develped in Britain cobbling together sound-generating machines from army surplus radio gear, and producing electronic music that at the time was seen as throw-away, low-art, whilst their peers in Europe and the USA were regarded as exponents of high-art and funded accordingly.

Here's the programme synopsis:

Comedian Stewart Lee is passionate about electronic music and he take us on a remarkable musical journey. We discover how, after the Second World War, a small group of electronic pioneers began tinkering with their army surplus kit to create new sounds and music.
Tristram Cary started the first electronic music studio in Britain but, while France, Germany, Italy and the USA had lavishly funded research centres, British electronic music remained the preserve of boffins on a budget.

As the programme reveals, this make do and mend approach prevailed long after austerity Britain had given way to the swinging 60s, with Peter Zinovieff developing EMS synthesizers from a shed at the bottom of his garden in Putney. (Paul McCartney put on his wellies and took a look). Zinovieff is interviewed about his experiments in sound.

Unsurprisingly, the electronic community in Britain was a small, intimate group and joining Cary and Zinovieff was Daphne Oram, who devoted decades to developing a 'drawn sound' electronic composition system that never really quite worked.

Brian Hodgson tells us about 1960s experimental and electronic festivals, including The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave (1967) at which The Beatles' electronic piece Carnival Of Light had its only public airing. We shall also hear how the radiophonic workshop broke new musical ground with Dr. Who.

Experts in the history of electronic music, including author and musician Mark Ayers and Goldsmiths College lecturer in computer studies Dr. Michael Grierson give the boffins' view and Portishead's Adrian Utley explains why the early forays in electronics are still relevant today.

It's available on the BBC iPlayer until Tuesday morning >> LISTEN HERE

Radio 4 Extra goes Radiophonic

In a rare moment of synchronicity (following my Radiophonic Workshop post yesterday), I was excited to hear an advert for a documentary* on BBC Radio 4 Extra this Saturday morning and evening.

Selected Radiophonic Works (9am - 12noon & 7pm - 10pm, Saturday 14 July 2012**)

Richard Coles tells the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop's extraordinary story.

In 1958 an extraordinary musical laboratory opened at the BBC. It was called the Radiophonic Workshop and provided music and sound for a wealth of BBC programmes, from The Goons to Dr Who.

With contributions from Coldcut, Dick Mills and Mark Ayres, Richard Coles explores the achievements of the unit and presents a carefully chosen selection of programmes showcasing the department's work.

 Very much looking forward to a Radiophonic Saturday morning here at L'Amour Electronique HQ...

* It seems to be a repeat of a programme first aired in 2008.
** Should also be available on the iPlayer for 7 days after - I'll post a link in the comments after the broadcast.

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Sunday evening
I'm currently listening back to the 3 hour marathon broadcast. It's made up of various old programmes and archive clips, and presented by Richard Coles (who use to be in Bronski Beat and is now a vicar).

The first part is a great introduction to the Workshop looking at key members and examples of their recordings, in the context of other musique concrète, and how they were created (the tardis sound in the Dr Who theme was a key scraping up a bass piano string!).

The start of middle section is somewhat disturbing: an extended sequence called Within Dreams, in which various voices relate disturbing recurrent nightmares over a minimal Delia Derbyshire electronic soundscape.

Next is a full episode of The Goon Show parodying/paying homage to Quatermass & The Pit.

The final hour looks at the later period when the Workshop brought in a few EMS synthesisers to aid sound and tone generation.  Particular highlights: Inferno Revisited by Peter Howell, an imagined guided tour through Dante's Inferno, which took 6 weeks to complete and "practically exhausted the Workshop's Fairlight".

phew!

eine kleine lift muzak

It was the wee, small hours as I was passing through Gatwick Airport recently. I found myself stood in a lift full of over-tired Brits, inappropriately dressed for an inclement British summer night, as they returned sun-blushed and liver-pickled from their package-holidays in the Costa-del-Sun.

In a distorted, almost apologetic voice, the elevator spake: GOING DOWN

A split-second of weightlessness sent a shiver up my spine and we descended; a faint smile passed across my face as Malcolm Clarke from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop programmed the behemoth "Delaware" which fed whimsical electronic lift-muzak into my ears...

Malcolm Clarke (BBC Radiophonic Workshop) - La Grande Pièce de la Foire de la Rue Delaware

[buy this on Music From The BBC Radiophonic Workshop on vinyl from discogs.com, or on CD re-issue of the 1975 album The Radiophonic Workshop from amazon.co.uk]

...I was very nearly tempted to step back through the shutting doors, press a button and enjoy my Radiophonic lift experience for just a little longer, but I had a bus to catch and a bed waiting for me to rest my own weary head.