Delia Derbyshire - Experimental Dance Music Pioneer?

[Pip Madeley]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7512072.stm

Most unexpected of all, however, is a piece of music that sounds like a contemporary dance track which was recorded, it is believed, in the late sixties.

Paul Hartnoll, formerly of the dance group Orbital and a great admirer of Ms Derbyshire's work, said the track was, "quite amazing".

"That could be coming out next week on [left-field dance label] Warp Records," he noted.

"It's incredible when you think when it comes from. Timeless, really. It could be now as much as then."

Delia Derbyshire's voice can be heard introducing it. "Forget about this," she says, "it's for interest only."

Delia was one cool lady.

[SiHart]

She sure was. It's really a great shame that this critical acclaim for her work didn't come in her lifetime. I think, from what I've read, she really would have liked to have known that her work was in some way pioneering and important, but throughout her life it was dismissed as just stuff for TV and Radio. A great pity.

I hope more of this is going to be released some time. I'd love to hear more of her work. I know they're gradually working to get it released (and not just her, there's a 2 CD release of music by her fellow composer at the Workshop, John Baker coming in August) but it seems so slow.

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

Some of her stuff is way beyond the 60's but some of it is of its time. That 'dance track' is very liquid & future referencing yet her Blue Veils & Golden Sands is of its time.

[Stuart Wallis]

I know they're gradually working to get it released (and not just her, there's a 2 CD release of music by her fellow composer at the Workshop, John Baker coming in August) but it seems so slow.

Well I hope they get a move-on, I'd like to hear more.

[Wayne]

I've just got this, amongst recent acquisitions.



It includes 10 of Delia's tracks, including 'Blue Veils & Golden Sands'. My favourite is the 'The Delian Mode'. It's very Tristram Cary.
Anyone who doubts her credentials as a serious composer should watch 'The Legend of Hell House'. If only for her marvelous score.

[Perry Vale]

I hope more of this is going to be released some time. I'd love to hear more of her work. I know they're gradually working to get it released (and not just her, there's a 2 CD release of music by her fellow composer at the Workshop, John Baker coming in August) but it seems so slow.

Si xx

There are two Radiophonic cd releases on the schedule for late September, but as we've seen in the past with these things, that could easily change!

[SiHart]

Ooh! Do you have any more details about what might be on them, Steve?

BBC Radiophonic Music is a great Radiophonic album. I was wise enough to buy the CD release a few years back (I didn't buy the other one, sadly) and while it's probably an acquired taste, I really like the inventiveness on display. And Delia and John Baker come out on top from it, as the stand out composers.

Si xx

[Antony Cox]

SI HART IN "Reading Steve's post" SHOCKER!

[SiHart]

I'm turning over a new leaf this week!

Si xx

[Perry Vale]

Ooh! Do you have any more details about what might be on them, Steve?

Nope, just catalogue numbers, and a release date (22/09). They're called "BBC Radiophonic Music" and "The Radiophonic Workshop". Like I said though, they could disappear off the schedule in the same way Vols 3 & 4 did a couple of years ago.

[SiHart]

In which case it sounds like they're re-releases of the prevous CDs. Not a bad thing, as I didn't get the second one, as I said. We'll see, eh?

Si xx

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I love Delia Derbyshire's stuff, but that 'dance' track is basically just a repetitive drum loop. It says a lot about modern musical attitudes that that is seen as "cutting edge" and of more interest than her other stuff.

She's got all that other wonderful stuff in her catalogue, yet Paul Hartnoll just goes "ooh yeah" and bangs his head to a repetitive beat, sucking on a spliff and injecting heroin into his eyeballs, pretending he's having a profound musical experience. At least this is how I imagine it happened

[Zbigniev Hamson]

And why was Mark Ayres hoarding them for 7 years?

[Perry Vale]

And why was Mark Ayres hoarding them for 7 years?

He wasn't.

The tapes were passed on to me, at Brian Hodgson's recommendation, by Delia's partner after her death, for me to catalogue and cross-check against Radiophonic Workshop holdings.

But you have to realise that this was a large pile of boxes containing nearly 300 reels of tape, very few with labels on (the tapes were labelled once, cryptically, with little bits of sticky tape, sometimes 10 or 20 per reel, but most of them had fallen off over the years - some boxes had a litter of disconnected and largely unreadable labels at the bottom). I realised after a few months that this was going to take 2-3 years dedicated work, just on this collection, and with no funding I simply could not afford to do it. Hence I teamed up with David Butler at Manchester University....they have been doing a preliminary trawl through the tapes over the past year or so, hence the news story, now. Leaving the boxes piled up unregarded in my basement was never a permanent option.

The whole point of the exercise is so that the tapes are not hoarded away, but properly preserved and catalogued.