Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes (Original Soundtrack Recordings)
A fascinating project that crosses the wires of two of the UK's most legendary electronic music pioneers, "The Myths and the Legendary Tapes" is Cosey Fanni Tutti's attempt to integrate Delia Derbyshire's style with her own, using the Radiophonic Workshop composer's original notes. So good.
Cosey has managed to find a subtle meeting point between her slithering electronics and Derbyshire's future-facing oscillator and tape transmissions. Unlike her last album, 2019's "Tutti", there's none of the industrial percussion that reminded listeners how instrumental she was in shaping the sound of British electronic music. But those hypnotic, sci-fi synth textures that have always been central to her music sound even more poignant when colligated with Derbyshire's unmistakable sonic fingerprints.
The problem with finding enough music to accompany a full-length movie about Derbyshire is that the composer didn't record a great deal of original pieces. Those we have access too - the original "Doctor Who" theme and classics like 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' and 'The Delian Mode' - are almost too well known to keep reusing again and again. So Tutti went to Derbyshire's notorious tape archive - a box of 267 reel-to-reel tapes and thousands of papers - entrusted to the Radiophonic Workshop's Mark Ayres after she died. The collection wasn't all original work from Derbyshire, she also dubbed recordings of music she was interested in, like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Can, but there was plenty Tutti could sink her teeth into. Most interestingly, the papers were notes from Derbyshire about how she fabricated her sounds, so Tutti was able to reach similar sonic spaces using her own arsenal of synthesizers and tape machines.
From the opening track 'Cornet Lament', there's an immediate wisp of familiarity that surrounds Tutti's treatments. First it's in the delay and reverb that knocks around the tape-processed brass, and then that creeping low-end emerges like a kraken from the deep, bringing us into Derbyshire's world. But it's not just a feat of replication, Cosey rubs her industrial wares against Derbyshire's library rhythms on tracks like 'Four Bebe' and the squelchy 'Brainwaves & Clogs'. These are throwback moments in some ways, but never reach into hauntology - Tutti isn't trying to recall a lost future, she's paying tribute to an artist who barely got her dues while she was still alive, and an artist who sits at the root of all British experimental electronic music. It's a fitting, and often moving celebration of an artist we've never stopped obsessing over.
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Transparent coloured vinyl.
Estimated Release Date: 16 September 2022
Please note that shipping dates for pre-orders are estimated and are subject to change
A fascinating project that crosses the wires of two of the UK's most legendary electronic music pioneers, "The Myths and the Legendary Tapes" is Cosey Fanni Tutti's attempt to integrate Delia Derbyshire's style with her own, using the Radiophonic Workshop composer's original notes. So good.
Cosey has managed to find a subtle meeting point between her slithering electronics and Derbyshire's future-facing oscillator and tape transmissions. Unlike her last album, 2019's "Tutti", there's none of the industrial percussion that reminded listeners how instrumental she was in shaping the sound of British electronic music. But those hypnotic, sci-fi synth textures that have always been central to her music sound even more poignant when colligated with Derbyshire's unmistakable sonic fingerprints.
The problem with finding enough music to accompany a full-length movie about Derbyshire is that the composer didn't record a great deal of original pieces. Those we have access too - the original "Doctor Who" theme and classics like 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' and 'The Delian Mode' - are almost too well known to keep reusing again and again. So Tutti went to Derbyshire's notorious tape archive - a box of 267 reel-to-reel tapes and thousands of papers - entrusted to the Radiophonic Workshop's Mark Ayres after she died. The collection wasn't all original work from Derbyshire, she also dubbed recordings of music she was interested in, like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Can, but there was plenty Tutti could sink her teeth into. Most interestingly, the papers were notes from Derbyshire about how she fabricated her sounds, so Tutti was able to reach similar sonic spaces using her own arsenal of synthesizers and tape machines.
From the opening track 'Cornet Lament', there's an immediate wisp of familiarity that surrounds Tutti's treatments. First it's in the delay and reverb that knocks around the tape-processed brass, and then that creeping low-end emerges like a kraken from the deep, bringing us into Derbyshire's world. But it's not just a feat of replication, Cosey rubs her industrial wares against Derbyshire's library rhythms on tracks like 'Four Bebe' and the squelchy 'Brainwaves & Clogs'. These are throwback moments in some ways, but never reach into hauntology - Tutti isn't trying to recall a lost future, she's paying tribute to an artist who barely got her dues while she was still alive, and an artist who sits at the root of all British experimental electronic music. It's a fitting, and often moving celebration of an artist we've never stopped obsessing over.
Estimated Release Date: 16 September 2022
Please note that shipping dates for pre-orders are estimated and are subject to change
A fascinating project that crosses the wires of two of the UK's most legendary electronic music pioneers, "The Myths and the Legendary Tapes" is Cosey Fanni Tutti's attempt to integrate Delia Derbyshire's style with her own, using the Radiophonic Workshop composer's original notes. So good.
Cosey has managed to find a subtle meeting point between her slithering electronics and Derbyshire's future-facing oscillator and tape transmissions. Unlike her last album, 2019's "Tutti", there's none of the industrial percussion that reminded listeners how instrumental she was in shaping the sound of British electronic music. But those hypnotic, sci-fi synth textures that have always been central to her music sound even more poignant when colligated with Derbyshire's unmistakable sonic fingerprints.
The problem with finding enough music to accompany a full-length movie about Derbyshire is that the composer didn't record a great deal of original pieces. Those we have access too - the original "Doctor Who" theme and classics like 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' and 'The Delian Mode' - are almost too well known to keep reusing again and again. So Tutti went to Derbyshire's notorious tape archive - a box of 267 reel-to-reel tapes and thousands of papers - entrusted to the Radiophonic Workshop's Mark Ayres after she died. The collection wasn't all original work from Derbyshire, she also dubbed recordings of music she was interested in, like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Can, but there was plenty Tutti could sink her teeth into. Most interestingly, the papers were notes from Derbyshire about how she fabricated her sounds, so Tutti was able to reach similar sonic spaces using her own arsenal of synthesizers and tape machines.
From the opening track 'Cornet Lament', there's an immediate wisp of familiarity that surrounds Tutti's treatments. First it's in the delay and reverb that knocks around the tape-processed brass, and then that creeping low-end emerges like a kraken from the deep, bringing us into Derbyshire's world. But it's not just a feat of replication, Cosey rubs her industrial wares against Derbyshire's library rhythms on tracks like 'Four Bebe' and the squelchy 'Brainwaves & Clogs'. These are throwback moments in some ways, but never reach into hauntology - Tutti isn't trying to recall a lost future, she's paying tribute to an artist who barely got her dues while she was still alive, and an artist who sits at the root of all British experimental electronic music. It's a fitting, and often moving celebration of an artist we've never stopped obsessing over.