Synth Pioneers (4)

2008-07-03 by Hal Berstram

Delia Derbyshire – The Delian Mode

Sorry for the delay since the last ‘pioneers’ post… been having to “sort a lot of things out” as they say in MI5. In code.

Anyway… here is a contribution from the late Delia Derbyshire, an extremely talented musician who went to work for the BBC Radiophonic workshop at a time when their music-making equipment consisted of various ‘oscillators’, a lot of magnetic tape, a lot of tools to manipulate tape, and various household and industrial devices that could be pressed into use as an extraordinary sonic arsenal.

Up until the end of the 60s there wasn’t one ‘synth’, as conventionally defined, in the whole Workshop. Ground-breaking stuff like the original 1963 Doctor Who theme was made entirely by tape collage, one note at a time.

This track is from the early 70s, by which time the Workshop had installed the massive EMS ‘Synthi 100’. It really did take up an entire room, and featured:

Try finding one of those at a boot sale near you! When I see a digital emulation of this baby as a VST instrument, I’ll know software synths have finally matured. (Someone’s done the much smaller Synthi AKS but no-one’s tried to emulate the 100… yet.)

As for the track itself, it’s an Aphex-style excursion into atonal ambient. A running joke I had with Al Boy in the early 90s was that I was always searching for an atonal track that didn’t sound cold. This doesn’t quite get there but it comes closer than most.

‘The Delian Mode’ was used as background music on a 70s episode of Doctor Who (Jon Pertwee era I think. If my mate Steve is reading this he will no doubt be able to pinpoint the exact episode…)

One of the (very few) disappointments of the post-2005 relaunch of Doctor Who is that the music is your standard Hollywood orchestra snoozefest. They should have hired Richard D James (Aphex) or Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher) to do it. Then you’d have really had something…

By the way sorry about the vinyl crackle at the start… my copy’s from a limited edition quadruple 10” (!) LP set of Radiophonic Workshop stuff reissued by Rephlex (Aphex’s label) a few years back. I’ve played it too often!

Download MP3 (0:00min / 0MB)

EMS Synthi 100 specs
Sadly out of production for about 30 years (although smaller models are still available!)
Buy it here
on the BBC's 'Dr Who at the Radiophonic Workshop' compilation
# | Posted in ambient | old school | > dilate | *now offline*
Comments » (4)

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  1. The Double K says (on Jul 3, 2008 @ 04:35 PM):

    > [...] searching for an atonal track that didn’t sound cold. This doesn't quite get there but it comes closer than most.

    I don't know, Hal – it still seems relatively chilling to me!

    Great info – to be honest I have never really given the Radiophonic Workshop a second thought before. Keep 'em coming!

  2. The Double K says (on Jul 10, 2008 @ 04:33 PM):

    Hopefully this won't spoil a future planned Synth Pioneers post from you Hal, but I've just seen this amazing site about the restoration of a 1938 Hammond Novachord (the first ever synthesiser) :
    http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/intro.htm

    Read the story, check the pictures and then he has mp3s towards the bottom of the page so you can hear how she sounds, which is pretty damn good! Absolutely amazing stuff if you have the slightest geeky interest in synthesisers.

  3. The Double K says (on Jul 10, 2008 @ 05:13 PM):

    ...and here there is a History Of Electronic Music – written in 1936!!

    http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/archives/miessner/em1936.htm

  4. Hal Berstram says (on Jul 11, 2008 @ 08:33 AM):

    Brilliant detective work, KK – that is awesome stuff. The Hammond Novachord looks great – not something that turns up at the boot sale every week, sadly (and if it did you'd need a Transit van to get it home!)

    I don't think I'll get as far back as 1936 sadly in 'synth pioneers' (although we shall see…)

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