A Sound British Adventure

This week's listening recommendations are twofold:

1:A Sound British Adventure.

"Comedian Stewart Lee is passionate about electronic music and he takes 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 Ayres and Goldsmith 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.

2:Book at Bedtime: The Greatcoat.

"A new ghost story from Helen Dunmore set during and after the Second World War, about the power of the past to imprint itself on the present, and possess it.

DROKK!!

"Jimp - Judge impersonator, Crime where the perp dresses and acts like a judge who for their own benefit or enjoyment" 

Geoff Barrow has been on BBC 6 Music promoting Drokk and other projects this weekend. 

Stuart Maconie's Freakier Zone: Geoff Barrow discusses Drokk, Beak> and plays some tracks that have influenced him.

Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone: Geoff and Adrian Utley out of Portishead discuss the band's album Third.

An abridged podcast version is also available here.

The shows will be up for 7 days after broadcast and are well worth a listen.

DROKK!

Portishead's Geoff Barrow and soundtrack composer Ben Salisbury bring you a musical tribute to Judge Joseph Dredd's home town, Mega-City One. If the Dredd movie was made back when it was first on the cards in the early '80's and John Carpenter had got the directing gig, maybe his score would have sounded something like this. Especially if he had roped in Tangerine Dream and Neu! to flesh out a few cues here and there, once they hit the recording studio. For me this is up there with the recent work of College and the Valerie Collective for perfectly capturing that cool throbbing retro-synth sound without ever falling into cheesy parody. Great stuff:

Various zarjaz hard copy formats are also available from Invada and stores like Norman Records and Boomkat should you desire them. Don't hang around though.

Scrotnig!

Geoff Barrow gives great interview on The Skinny.

From the Invada Records page:

Geoff Barrow is a founding member of Portishead and producer/label owner of Invada Records UK. Ben Salisbury is a soundtrack composer with over 200 film and TV credits to his name, including David Attenborough’s ‘Life of Mammals’, ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ and ‘Life in Cold Blood’. Barrow and Salisbury met over 10 years ago when they both joined a Bristol football team for old men. After many disastrous games they decided they might be more productive working on a music project together. Other work commitments kept them apart until late 2010, when the pair met up with a screenwriter to discuss some possible work on a feature film project. Although their involvement with this particular film did not continue, a collaborative writing relationship had begun…

When Barrow and Salisbury revisited and started expanding upon this early material they decided to continue writing what was essentially soundtrack music. Barrow, along with album designer and long term friend, Marc Bessant, were both avid 2000AD readers from a young age, and the sprawling metropolis and classic stories of Mega-City One seemed the ideal inspiration for this ‘soundtrack’. 

DROKK was written in a 6 month period between Barrow’s Portishead world tour and Salisbury’s composing jobs for the BBC. Although it is a soundtrack of sorts, Barrow and Salisbury instinctively felt that music for MC1 should steer clear of the rich orchestration common to many contemporary film scores. Even for electronica the music is often purposefully stark and spare, with the majority of tracks created exclusively on the Oberhiem 2 Voice Synthesizer (a 1975 classic keyboard), and its onboard sequencer used to create rhythm and drums sounds. The only exceptions are a handful of tracks which combine the synth with digitally manipulated and time - stretched performances of acoustic instruments (such as piano, violin, mandolin, ukulele, voice and hammered dulcimer). There is also a brief cameo from Barrow’s other band BEAK>.

Until next time, Splundig Vur Thrigg Earthlets.