April 4, 2010

Rays and Sparks (Repost)

As request by my faithful reader (and brother) Gonzalo here's a great work from late 60's called "Electrical Storm", as said by specialists, a real must in the electronic music: White Noise is an experimental electronic music band formed in London in 1969 by American-born David Vorhaus, a classical bass player with a background in both physics and electronic engineering. He was initially joined by BBC Radiophonic Workshop composers Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, both ex of electronic music project Unit Delta Plus.

The album was created using a variety of tape manipulation techniques, and is notable for its early use of the first British synthesizer, the EMS Synthi VCS3. Amongst many oddities, the first track on the album, Love Without Sound, employed sped-up tape edits of Vorhaus playing the double bass to create violin and cello sounds.

"I use voices a lot too, but not as conventional vocals. I always use a lot of voices, and if somebody having an orgasm in the background is used as part of one of the waveforms, it makes the sound more interesting, without the listener actually knowing what they're hearing." (David Vorhaus)

The band recorded the first two tracks with the intention of producing a single only, but were then persuaded by Chris Blackwell of Island Records to create an entire album. At this point the group set up the Kaleidophon Studio in a flat in Camden Town, London, and spent a year creating the next four tracks. The last track was put together in one day when Island demanded the completion of the album.

This album remains popular over 40 years after it was recorded, and many electronic musicians cite it as an influence. Delia Derbyshire has become a major cult hero after her death and many of her recordings have been released posthumously; although not initially commercially successful for Island, it has over the years proved to be a cult classic, going on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, namechecked by such contemporary artists as The Orb and Julian Cope, influencing contemporary acts such as Broadcast, Add N to (X), and Secret Chiefs 3; by the way, a brief extract can be heard in the Hammer Film Productions film Dracula AD 1972.

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