# Event 54: British Electronic Music in the 1960s - Leeds, Wednesday, Free!



## Fez909 (May 12, 2014)

Anyone up for this? It sounds ace! And It's free. I'll be there, probably for the pre-concert talk as well as for the concert itself*. *
*



			British Electronic Music in the 1960s: Wishart, Gerhard, Derbyshire, Oram, Davies
		
Click to expand...

*


> A selection of electronic tape music and audiovisual work by pioneering composers working in Britain during the formative years of electronic music, projected via multiple loudspeakers surrounding the audience. Celebrated Leeds-born composer Trevor Wishart will perform extracts from his first tape work ‘Machine’ (1969)—which includes sounds recorded in factories in Leeds and Nottingham—and his most recent work ‘Encounters in the Republic of Heaven’ (2006–10). Monty Adkins (University of Huddersfield) will perform several pieces by Roberto Gerhard that have been newly restored from rare archive tapes. The programme also includes works by Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram—of BBC Radiophonic Workshop fame—and Hugh Davies.
> 
> 6.30pm – Pre-concert talk by James Mooney, Monty Adkins, Trevor Wishart
> 
> ...


----------



## Pickman's model (May 12, 2014)

speaking of the bbc radiophonic workshop


----------



## moose (May 13, 2014)

Can't make it, but that does sound great! Please report back...


----------



## belboid (May 13, 2014)

moose said:


> Can't make it, but that does sound great! Please report back...


this


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 13, 2014)

Damn you Northerners and your mid-week freeness! 

/Shakes twiglet at the sky


----------



## Fez909 (May 13, 2014)

Are twiglets southern?


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 13, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> Are twiglets southern?



No idea but it was all I had to hand!


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 14, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> Are twiglets southern?



No, they are Northern.  Made in Aintree, according to Wiki anyway.


----------



## tufty79 (May 14, 2014)

was going to try get to this, but couldn't 
enjoy - it sounds ace


----------



## Fez909 (May 15, 2014)

Thanks, I did and it was!

I got there a bit late so I missed most of the talk (pub meal took too long  - although I got another pint in  ). I arrived at the end of the history part when they'd just introduced Trevor Wishart and he talked about growing up in Leeds and being sent a musically gifted academy as a child. His story sounded a lot like some of the stuff you hear from the Detroit techno pioneers when they talk about the environment they grew up in and being influenced by the sounds of the industry around them.

So he talked a bit about his first album and how he was embarrassed a bit by it these days but people want to hear it for historical reasons and so he plays it. Then he mentioned he has a new album where he sampled the voices of people in the North East..in pubs, clubs, schools, etc. I got a coffee at the interval and he was stood next to me so we chatted about the North East for a bit.  Then back in and the tunes started.

We were sat in an old hall and there was a circle of speakers surrounding us (10 of them..hefty looking things) in a circle. The old recordings are largely mono so they used a "sound diffusing" technique which I've never heard of before. There was a guy who was at a mixing desk and he had a chart showing the various "events" in the pieces and he was using these events to determine which speakers get the most volume etc. I guess it's a way of providing the illusion of depth or something? It was interesting, anyway.

The music was pretty out there, but at the same time really familiar. It was like listening to the soundtracks of early sci-fi and horror films. Some of the sounds felt clichéd but I had to keep reminding myself these were the people who invented the clichés; not the derivatives   At times it sounded like Demdike Stare or Jeff Mills, but without the beats and not as repetitive. 

Then Trevor's Machine played and it was fairly weird, but good. Quite dated, as he mentioned, but that's to be expected. The modern stuff he played was brilliant, though. Although there were times you could hear the North Eastern accents coming through (and it actually made me laugh a few times  ), most of the time he'd deconstructed it all into separate sounds and rhythms, and it was a full 8-channel recording, so the 10 speakers really came into their own here. It got a bit hectic at times and I felt like I was trippin' as the voices were surrounding me and spinning and coming from alternative directions and slowing and speeding and echoing all fucked up and distorted. Some of the effects he was using reminded me of Aphex Twin and Luke Vibert and co, but again, beatless and less structured.

Great stuff


----------

