The widespread electrification of music during the 1950s led to a multitude of artistic concepts – in- and outside the confines of academia 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

Listen also to

Synthesis – Approaching a New Instrument

Synthesizers brought new sounds into the world. 43 minutes of oscillators, filters and envelopes controlled by Conrad Schnitzler, Daphne Oram, Erkki Kurenniemi, Laurie Spiegel and others – between the early Sixties and 1977 (plus an exception).

Playlist ‘Early Electronic Music’

Otto Luening – Low Speed

the first all electronic music concert in the US, premiered at New York City’s Museum Of Modern Art (1952, Ellipsis Arts)

Daphne Oram – Ursa Major (Sun Mix)

Sounds from the graphic and photoelectric production system Oramics, invented by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop co-founder herself. It allowed for changes in pitch control and timbre without specialist knowledge (1962, Young Americans)

Richard Maxfield – Pastoral Symphony

Sixties music before the Sixties had really started, from New York City (1960, New World Records)

Tom Dissevelt – Fantasy In Orbit: Tropicolour

Tom Dissevelt’s music captured the time’s space mood 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

discarded material from the main work, but saved from ending up in the bin (1961, Starkland)

Alireza Mashayekhi – Shur, Op.15

highly conceptual electronic music, connecting Persian musical traditions and noise, realized in the Netherlands at the University of Utrecht (1966, Sub Rosa)

Gerald Strang – Composition 3

revolutionary sound solutions, made entirely with 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 sonic invention from Utrecht (1964, Composers’ Voice)

İlhan Mimaroğlu – Bowery Bum

form, content, and sound source of the piece 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 camels walking (1967, Silva Screen)

Else Marie Pade – Syv Cirkler

inspired by a composition based on the stars and their movements, experienced by Danish composer Else Marie Pade at the planetarium during the World Exhibition in Brussels (1958, Important Records)