Delia Derbyshire - The Delian Mode (documentary)

[Phology]

 

A Genie Award winning documentary about electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, primarily remembered for the original realization of Ron Grainer's theme for Doctor Who and her work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442559/

[DJ Rock Well]

Oh yes! Great post mate!

[danswift]

One brilliantly minded & legendary lady

Is Delia Derbyshire The Future Sound of London's Mum by any chance lol ?...if you listen to the Fsol 'Lifeforms' LP (one of my all time favourites ) you can hear her influence all over that record like a rash..the track below is a good example of the use of found sounds mixed with old analogue synths and digital samples

Theres a great story about when Ron Grainer first heard the theme tune to Dr Who and he was so impressed by her rendering of it that he turned to her and said " Did i really write this Delia ?"..to which she replied
"Well,.. most of it"..

unfortunately Delia Derbyshire never recieved any royalties from her compositions because it was policy at the BBC back then that Radiophonic Workshop musicians had to remain anonymous (yes,theyve always been a bunch of cunts, the dear old BBC) and she was also chronically addicted to alcohol and was someone who drank herself to death at the age of 64...she was actually in the process of recording her first commercially available music in 20 years with Sonic Boom (aka Pete Kember) from the Spacemen 3 which would have been amazing to hear when she died in 2001

[Flexinoodle]

Funny you should mention moms, one of my ex's moms worked for Delia Derbyshire hahaha

[Guest petesasqwax]

she was also chronically addicted to alcohol and was someone who drank herself to death at the age of 64...she was actually in the process of recording her first commercially available music in 20 years with Sonic Boom (aka Pete Kember) from the Spacemen 3 which would have been amazing to hear when she died in 2001

That's gutting - I bet it would've been incredible

[danswift]

Probably an obvious question but have you heard E.A.R (Experimental Audio Research) at all Pete ?

 

Its another side project of Sonic Boom's and Delia Derbyshire was involved with a couple of their albums towards the end of the 1990s..the lps are called Continium and I think the other one was Vibrations ...very experimental music with lots of drones and weird textures to it and the sort of thing id imagine you'd like if you dont know them already that is..

[Guest petesasqwax]

I've only heard Mesmerised and it was interesting, but I wasn't completely taken by it. I wanted to investigate further, but there's masses of stuff and I didn't know where to really start.

[danswift]

I wanted to investigate further, but there's masses of stuff and I didn't know where to really start.

Yeah mate i can appreciate what you're saying here

the whole axis of Spacemen 3 ,Sonic Boom ,Spectrum ,E.A.R and their related offshoots is a bit of a minefield tbh and its pretty easy to get lost in the stuff that can be a bit hard going to listen to at times ..one minute the music can be sublime and the next moment its like audio torture lol but i guess the only thing to do there is just to keep digging to find the best of the bunch