THE ELECTRONIC
BIBLE (or how it
came to be …)
A CONVERSATION ACROSS THE SHORT WAVES This is the unorthodox edition compiled by Ann Shenton (add n to x/ large number) and Andy Fraser (some friendly). What has electronic music become? At one time it was mathematical,
sequences, cutting edge, binary, frightening, avant guard, high brow,
then came Kraft werk and when they dressed up in matching outfits
and played at being robots, people relaxed, they made it acceptable. |
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Why is the Electronic Bible different or better in anyway? I shall try to explain … The Electronic Bible has hunted down and captured phenomena, frozen in time 20 pieces of electronic music for sonic archaeological scrutiny. Electronic music is no longer a genre with such strict parameters, it is limitless, and it has become the acceptable face of modern music. However, there are many impostors. The purpose of the electronic bible was to exclude these impostors and focus in on true electronic artists; people who haven't just joined the movement or ‘scene', but musicians who have been sonic experimentalists for some time. |
They are (not in order of age or notoriety): Pat Riot (aka Richard H Kirk, Cabaret Voltaire) | Kings Have Long Arms | Large Number (aka Ann Shenton, Add n to x) | Ezrapound (aka Steve Claydon, Add n to x) | Camp Actor | Transformer Di Roboter | Relaxed Muscle (aka Jarvis Cocker) | Boywithatoy | Mt Vernon Arts Lab | Fashion Flesh | National Bandit (aka Jason Buckle-Fat truckers-All Seeing I) | Phosphene | N | Rauberhohle | Hiem | BlackRainbow (aka Mira-Ladytron and KHLA) | Sean O Hagan (aka High Llamas) | Ear and Delia (aka Peter Kember, sonic boom and Delia Derbyshire). No flash in the pans here, no, all good electronic pedigree. This is the Electronic Crufts. It's a matter of knowing exactly how and what music has ever been made, and knowing what state the music world is in and understanding the futility of trying to do something new as opposed to just doing it without trying. To these musicians it comes naturally. This is volume 1, the first of 3. |
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This has become a crusade to discover the greatest contemporary electronic music. TRACK BY TRACK…………. The Radiophonic Workshop was the sound lab where some of the first experimental electronic music came from in London. Dr Who, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, special sound effects for sci-fi TV. and BBC Radio compositions. That is why we were over the moon when Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom wanted to include a track he had co-written with Delia Derbyshire of the Radio phonic Workshop. (Track 19, Sychrondipity Machine.) John Cavanagh (of BBC Radio Scotland, who had interviewed Derbyshire for his radio programs) submitted a track called ‘spheries” under the name Phosphene. This is a piece co written arranged and produced by Cavanagh, Lol Coxhill and Raymond MacDonald. Atonal-analogue and brass. A saxophonist jettisoned into outer space on a solo voyage to the Electronic Black Hole that throbs constant throughout the track like some interstellar pulsar picked up by Arecibo or the satellite dish at Jodrell Bank. |
Another link to Derbyshire is Mount Vernon Arts Lab and ‘N' ( aka Drew Mulholland who lives in Glasgow with his parrot.) Derbyshire gave Drew one of her snuff tins as a memento of their friendship. On track 14, as ‘N', Drew Mulholland creates a sonic blast straight into a pure sound portal, demonic and out of control, but its such an honest piece of music. He maintains the experimentalists approach to composition and is very ‘Radiophonic Workshop minded.' The track orbits for 5.32 minutes as a mutant cathedral organ crossbred with a red dwarf. It spirals out of control, as the deep space reverb gets ever more complicated. Mulholland's other track (no. 9) ‘Hobgoblins' offers the listener the playful side to electronica. A spoof horror with comedy trombone and a haunting theremin. It's like riding the Ferris wheel at a fair- ground run by escaped lunatics. Fashion Flesh (John
Talaga) lives in Bay City USA, inventor of the Gestaposizer; an oscillator
and collector of all things electronic, he is also a member of the
Super Madrigal Brothers. Track 12, ‘gestaposizer' is a 52 second
demonstration of the invention, there are only 2 gestaposizers in
existence and Ann Shenton is the proud owner of the other one. Fashion
Flesh's other track on the Electronic Bible is ‘second hand submarine'.
There are no modern trickery or production methods that enable you
to place this piece of music in any decade. A very simple piece built
up with synthesisers throbbing, repeating, breaking up and becoming
extinct. Then reforming after a sequence of primordial soup sounds.
Talaga isn't afraid of the brutally honest composition. Oh the joys
of electricity (no drums). |
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Track 4 is by Ezrapound (aka Steven
Claydon) this is Claydon's new project post Add n to x. It's a new
direction with Claydon using vocals as another instrument alongside
his arsenal of synthesizers, live drums, guitar, bass, all processed,
bastardised and electronified. He insists his new compositions are
best listened to in the nude. Kings Have Long Arms (track 2) is fronted by Adrian Flanagan ( Sheffield) the track ‘F.1. Nymphomaniac' is a love song about venereal disease and Tom Jones, groupies and synths. Say no more. Sean O Hagan (high llamas) has written a piece called ‘chip, chip' charmingly liquidising Radiophonic Workshopism with the Beach Boys harmonics. Its very melodic, you see, not all electronic compositions are hard hitting robotic sex tales, electronic music can be very subtle and seductive too. Hiem (Boswell, Barton and Eastwood from Sheffield) encompass so much of that Giorgio Moroder- pop innocence, and, mixed with sarcasm and ‘prog-electronics' it creates an irresistible concoction on their ‘pop-tronic' track ‘Tweak' Large Number (aka Ann Shenton) utilises her left over analogue synths and home made oscillators, including the Gestaposizer. (Tracks 3 and 20) her ‘ prog –tronic ‘ style is unmistakable. |
The track ‘I
shot her at the setting of the sun' takes the lyrics from an old
English poem and ‘ earth has shrunk in the wash ‘ is a live recording
with Rob Allum on drums (High Llamas and Add n to x drummer). Black
Rainbow is Mira from Ladytron ‘ V' Kings Have Long Arms. This is
a ‘folk-tronic/acoustic-tronic ‘ number with farmyard sounds
and all. Transformer Di Roboter (Berlin) have written the piece titled ‘ Bob Ross' about the painting by numbers American TV celebrity. In this track Bob Ross has a voltage overload, in Electronic Bible terms it is ‘ art-sarcasma-tronic'. Rauber hohle (Berlin) uses Casio synths and pitch shifted vocals for an element of innocence, but it's more like ‘chucky' the killer doll than Barbie. Termed as ‘bitter-sweet-tronica'. Camp Actors piece is titled ‘semi detached soul, its ‘stadium-tronic' sounding, with a Sisters of Mercy style vocal and an unpredictable arrangement. Boywithatoy =post soft cell electronica with their track ‘ killer species' that has a ‘club Tropicana' intro with the sound of high heeled shoes on gravel. Pat Riot (Richard h Kirk of cabaret Voltaire), the godfather of electronica, opens the album with ‘who's afraid (of the red white and blue) a pulse destroyer of a track with Kirk-ode vocals. ‘Cabaret voltage' as Drew Mulholland would describe it. Many people talk of Sheffield being the birthplace of British electronic music; perhaps this is why a large percentage of artists on this album are from up North. |
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Available in all good record emporia and through the
digital ether