To get us all in the mood for this years Deliaphonic event we will be having another sound installation at the CET building the week before, on Saturday the 28th April.
It will be totally live, as before. So expect a totally different sonic experience. We may even bring along some reel-to-reel tape decks, for some live tape manipulation.
We are delighted to confirm the return of Deliaphonic, a celebration of Delia Derbyshire’s birthday. And we have some very special guests lined up for this years event.
Ian Helliwell – author, film maker, musician, and audio-visual artist, Ian will be presenting a selection of his short films, as well as a live performance.
Esya – the electronic solo project from Savages and Kite Base artist Ayse Hassan.
White Noise – the experimental electronic music project started in 1969 by David Vorhaus. Initially including Brian Hodgson and Delia herself, David is now joined by Mike Painter.
Full artist profiles to follow.
On Saturday the 2nd December Synthcurious and friends will be performing a Live Sound Installation at the CET building in Corporation Street, Coventry.
Set in one of the print halls of the former Coventry Evening Telegraph building the event will be an improvised experiment using analogue synthesisers to exploit the acoustics of this unique space.
//Live//Experimental//Improvised//Evolving//Industrial//Electronic//Noise//
A really nice review of the event on the Fighting Boredom website.
Words by Adrian Bloxham and photos by Martin Ward.
Thank you both.
A huge thank you to all of the artists for an amazing show last night. The hundreds of fans who turned out on a Friday night were treated to great performances from Jerry, Jonny, Robin, Chris, Hannah, Peter and Pete.
Thanks also of course to our partners, The Tin Music and Arts, our hosts at the Cathedral, and to all of the sponsors of the event. And thanks to the many volunteers and contributors that make staging things like this possible.
We are also extremely grateful for the excellent turn out, that helped to make the evening so special. Happy birthday, Delia!
We will be posting photos from the show over the next few days. So stay tuned.
Photo above by Nicedaynav.
In the mid 1960s British born engineer, inventor and musician Peter Zinovieff was in Unit Delta Plus with BBC Radiophonic Workshop members Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire. Based in Peter’s London studio, their intention was to create and promote electronic music, which they did at experimental and electronic music festivals including performances at the Windmill Theatre and The Roundhouse.
MUSYS, an analogue-digital performance system, gave birth to the legendary British synthersiser company, Electronic Music Studio (EMS).
Since their creation, the products produced by EMS have been used to create some of the most groundbreaking music of the late 20th and early 21st century. Users include Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, Tangerine Dream, The Who, Brian Eno, David Bowie, Jean-Michel Jarre, Sonic Boom, Portishead, and Aphex Twin, to name but a very small number.
Peter continues to compose music today, and has composed a piece especially for this event.
Jonny Trunk – DJ set
Jonny Trunk is an English writer, broadcaster, DJ, producer, and owner and founder of Trunk Records. Trunk Records is a British label that specialises in film, library, and early electronic music releases.
Jonny Trunk presents a very rare screening of ‘Circle of Light’ film.
Circle Of Light is a 32 minute colour film shot in 1972 by Anthony Roland, featuring the photography of Pamela Bone, with a groundbreaking soundtrack by Delia Derbyshire and Elsa Stansfield.
Bone travelled extensively in exotic locations across India, including Sikkim and Kashmir. On returning home, she began working on a conceptual slide show of her travels and transparencies, one that began to slowly morph over the next seven years into a show of slides influenced by travel, the seasons, children, still life studies and landscapes. The working title of the show was Circle Of Light.
Her slides and techniques were unique; she’d blow up images to use as textures behind other images, she’d put black and white images behind colour ones. The results were often extraordinary, baffling, and deeply engaging. She took lessons in sound recording too, but things took an unexpected turn in 1969 when she was introduced to Anthony Roland by art critic Marjorie Bruce-Milne. Together they began work on Circle Of Light.
For a soundtrack Roland commissioned Delia Derbyshire (moonlighting from the Radiophonic Workshop). They had recently met via designer Lucienne Roberts, and with the help of artist Elsa Stansfield (pre their founding of Electrophon Studios in 1973) Derbyshire brought together numerous elements for the soundtrack.
The finished film has no narration apart from Bone’s introduction, and focuses intensely on her unique glass transparencies. The narrative is controlled by Roland’s signature slow tracking style; with calming drifts across glorious, intense images of beaches, trees, forests – landscapes and still lives too, with gradual mixes and all perfectly accompanied by Derbyshire’s collaborative electronic soundtrack with effects.
Indian born Jerry Dammers is best known for being the founder member, primary songwriter and keyboard player with The Specials.
Educated in Coventry, he formed the 2 Tone Record label, which helped develop the SKA revival of the 1970s and 1980s. Jerry went on to became an anti-apartheid campaigner, famously writing the song Free Nelson Mandela.
In 2006 Jerry formed the music ensemble The Spatial AKA Orchestra, a project that encompasses many different influences, proving that he continues to challenge music conventions.
Jerry will be playing ambient and electronic “Library Music” including some by Delia Derbyshire.
Northern Ireland born Hannah Peel is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist electronic composer now based in London. A member of The Magnetic North, her recent collaborations include with Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve (aka Erol Alkan & Richard Norris) John Foxx and the Maths.
She has also been composing under her new synth-based, space-age alter-ego Mary Casio with an experimental piece combining analogue electronics and a 33-piece colliery brass band (it debuted to a sold out Manchester audience in May). Although modestly she shies away from any comparison, it’s little wonder The Observer recently described Peel as ‘a latter day Delia Derbyshire’.
Howlround create recordings and performances entirely from manipulating natural acoustic sounds on vintage reel-to-reel tape machines, with additional reverb or electronic effects strictly forbidden. In an age where one can create all manner of electronic music with a simple swipe of a mouse, Howlround prove not only how much fun is to be had in making things complicated again, but conversely just how little effort is sometimes needed to create a genuinely uncanny and beguiling sound world.
‘Manually manipulating reels that feel like they’ve only recently been exhumed, the duo weave a dense tapestry as haunting and immersive as Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson‘s Legend Of Hell House Soundtrack’ – The Wire, Nov 2016.
Synthcurious 