The widespread electrification of music during the 1950s led to a multitude of artistic concepts – both within and beyond the confines of academies and institutional studios.
44 minutes of fieldwork and funny sounds with Alireza Mashayekhi, Delia Derbyshire, Else Marie Pade, İlhan Mimaroğlu and others.
Featured cover art: İlhan Mimaroğlu – Face The Windmills, Turn Left
Playlist
Otto Luening – Low Speed
The first concert featuring exclusively electronic music in the United States, premiered at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York City. (1952, Ellipsis Arts)
Daphne Oram – Ursa Major (Sun Mix)
Sounds from the Oramics graphic and photoelectric production system, invented by the co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop herself. It enabled changes to pitch control and timbre without specialist knowledge. (1962, Young Americans)
Richard Maxfield – Pastoral Symphony
Sixties music before the Sixties had really begun, from New York City. (1960, New World Records)
Tom Dissevelt – Fantasy In Orbit: Tropicolour
Tom Dissevelt’s music captured the space atmosphere of the time so convincingly that Stanley Kubrick considered him for the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey. (1963, Basta)
Tod Dockstader – Two Fragments From Apocalypse: Second Fragment
Material discarded from the main work but saved from ending up in the bin. (1961, Starkland)
Alireza Mashayekhi – Shur, Op.15
Highly conceptual electronic music combining Persian musical traditions and noise, produced in the Netherlands at the Utrecht University. (1966, Sub Rosa)
Gerald Strang – Composition 3
Revolutionary sound solutions, created entirely on a computer and presented at the ICA exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity in 1968. (1966, ICA)
Enore Zaffiri – Pr/5.a
Musical perspectives based on a structuralist principle derived from Euclidean geometry. (1965-1968, Die Schachtel)
Axel Meijer – Werkstuk-1964
Timeless sound innovation from Utrecht. (1964, Composers’ Voice)
İlhan Mimaroğlu – Bowery Bum
The form, content and sound source of the work are based on a drawing by Jean Dubuffet. (1964, Finnadar Records)
Delia Derbyshire – Blue Veils And Golden Sands
Soundtrack for a BBC documentary on the Tuareg, based on the tempo of walking camels. (1967, Silva Screen)
Else Marie Pade – Syv Cirkler
Inspired by a composition based on the stars and their movements, which was experienced by Danish composer Else Marie Pade at the planetarium during the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels. (1958, Important Records)
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