hangingfire at tumblr

Posts tagged BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Dec 16

One Week One Band—The Whole List

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Total posts: 31 
(Average: 6 posts/day.)

Approximate word count for the week: over 8,000.
(Average: 258 words/post, but the longer ones clocked in at around 500-700, and the shorter ones at 100 or so.)

Change in follower count at OWOB: 13,268 when I made my first post on Monday, 13,689 when I made my last post on Friday.
(Debatable how much credit I can take, but the important thing is that I didn’t cause a net loss.)

Thanks, everyone. If you’ve been following along, I hope you enjoyed it. And because it bears repeating: thank you, Bruce, for all your help. None of this would have ever happened without you.


Dec 15

Dec 14

rocketsandrayguns:

oneweekoneband:

In addition to her day job at the Workshop, Delia Derbyshire continued to experiment elsewhere with radiophonic techniques; some of her output was recorded as library music. We’ve already mentioned ESL 104; there was also Electrosonic on KPM, another collaboration with Brian Hodgson, published under their Li de la Russe and Nikki St George aliases. She and Hodgson also collaborated with American David Vorhaus under the name “Unit Delta Plus”, producing theatre music and other experimental radiophonics. As the band White Noise, they recorded the magnificently psychedelic An Electric Storm. Later, Hodgson and Derbyshire also collaborated on the soundtrack for the film The Legend of Hell House.

“Nightwalker”, presented here, is one of the Electrosonic pieces. Hodgson recalls that they recorded it partly at their Camden studio, Kaleidophon, and “sometimes we used to creep in the back of the Workshop at night and do it there”. Like “Blue Veils and Golden Sands”, “Nightwalker” is one of those deceptively simple, multilayered pieces made of overlapping tones and textures. It’s propelled forward by a descending, erratic rhythmic figure that reverses halfway through, suggesting a change in plot or direction. It’s quiet and elegantly creepy; very much a Derbyshire and Hodgson composition.

References:

  • delia-derbyshire.org
  • Electrosonic, Glo-Spot, 2006. Liner notes by John Cavanagh.

Hehe. Turns out you selected the same Delia track I posted a long time ago on my now-defunct electronic music Tumblr.

What can I say? It’s a good track.


Dec 13

One Week One Band—Tuesday

Also, once this week is over, I seriously need to not hear another version of the Doctor Who theme for at least a month.

…Christmas special in less than two weeks. Shit.

Well, at least there’s a nice long hiatus until the next series starts.


Dec 12

One Week One Band—Monday

Welcome to those of you who came here by way of One Week One Band. I assure you the quality of content here at Hangingfire Central is, in general, nowhere near as high as it is over there, but I hope you enjoy it anyway if you decide to stick around. Also, if you’re reading this, hi Mom and Dad. Sorry about all the swearing around here.



Dec 11

Coming up: Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

oneweekoneband:

Thank you, Ian!

Now for next week, we’ll cover a topic I’m really looking forward to (and know very little about…)

Karin Kross (who blogs at hangingfire.tumblr.com) will talk about English composer and electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire and her work (and those of her contemporaries) at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Derbyshire famously arranged the Doctor Who theme, but with her work and influence extending far beyond that, she and her fellow composers at the Radiophonic Workshop—a sound effect studio of the BBC created in 1958—have frequently been cited as “the unsung heroes of British electronica.

See you tomorrow!

— Hendrik

So this is a thing that I’ll be working on next week. Follow One Week One Band for more.


Nov 23

Doctor Who theme, 1963-1969. Composed by Ron Grainer, arranged by Delia Derbyshire.

Still the best version of the theme ever, for my money. Damn it.

(The TARDIS vworp-vworp was created by Brian Hodgson, incidentally. He made it by treating the sound of a key scraped over a piano wire.)