Drone Records

ORAM, DAPHNE - Oramics

Format: 4 x LP

Label & Cat.Number: Young Americans YoungAm001

Release Year: 2010

Note: collection of material (1959-1977) from this female British electronic / experimental music pioneer who invented the "Oramics System", a large machine that transformed 35mm film material into sound, she was also the founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; 44 tracks / 155 min. of material for the first time on vinyl, nice gatefold sleeve with rare archival photographs; RE-PRESS 2019 now avaiable !

Price (incl. 19% VAT): €45.00

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"Extremely special artefact from electronic music pioneer and founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Daphne Oram. None of this material has ever been available on vinyl before, that's over 155 minutes / 8 sides of vinyl cut at D&M and housed in a heavyweight, beautiful 300gm gatefold sleeve featuring rare archival photographs.* Daphne Oram was the founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a department she more or less single-handedly created in 1958 camping out at the BBC studios for nights on end splicing tapes and working with various modified machines to carefully arrange her abstract soundscapes. Eventually the BBC bent under her pressure and in studio 13 created the soon-to-be-legendary Radiophonic Workshop, with Oram its first director. Among her countless other achievements, Oram is cited as the first woman ever to design and build an electronic musical instrument, one that worked around the 'drawn-sound' technique whereby strips of 35mm film would be manipulated before being fed into her home-made 'Oramics' machine which would convert and 'read' the film into sound. Despite her considerable and historic list of achievements, Oram's life and work remain largely unknown by the wider public. As this remarkable 44-track collection shows, however, her work ranks amongst the most varied and pioneering ever made, it's quite incredible to think that this is the first time any of these precious recordings have been available on vinyl. As opposed to so much of the Radiophonic-era material that has surfaced over the last few years, Oram's work is often characterised by a much more layered and introspective quality, offsetting classic playful interludes and commercial recordings with beautiful, immersive pieces like the breathtaking Pulse Persephone and Bird of Parallax - pieces that simply have no equal in electronic music made at the time. It would be impossible to over-emphasise the importance and brilliance of this material - it really is compulsory listening for anyone with even just a passing interest in electronic music - her influence can be charted through pretty every musical current shaping the sounds of today. Unmissable." [label info]