Delia Derbyshire, UK electronic composer extraordinaire and BBC Radiophonic Veteran, inspires depths of love and respect from us electronic muzos male and female that defy description. As Tara Busch from AnalogSuicide puts it, people aren’t just fans: they’re Delians. I think if you could see the image inside the heads of Delia fans at the mere mention of her name or the sound of a single sound effect, it’d probably look something like this slow-motion clip Tara posted to AnalogSuicide last fall:

(Well, the editor at the BBC working on the show obviously felt that way.)

Via: We Love Delia! More Delia Derbyshire Deliciousness! [Analog Suicide]

I think people’s passions run this deep not simply out of a mad Delian crush, but also because of what she represents for the future of electronic music: Delia Derbyshire seemed to embrace sound with a relentless freshness and playfulness, the kind of spirit that could move forward the future of music in the same way she invigorated its past. And she came out of an entire scene of experimentation at the BBC and in the UK that could now spread virally online and in radiophonic workshops of independent musicians’ own creation.

Darren Landrum on Twitter is nice enough to send along two three newly-posted 1997 interviews with Delia on Radio Scotland. First part above; second part below. In YouTube bizarro fashion, they’re accompanied with strange sweeping slide shows, but Delia’s bubbling personality and insight shine through.

But perhaps you want to wear your Delian adoration on your sleeve, literally. Well, Analog Industries created a t-shirt this morning that, by the time Tom Whitwell (once and future Music thing creator) and myself Twittered and forum commenters posted, is now gone. Look out, Urban Outfitters.

Anyone want to try alternative Derbyshire couture? (Delia Derbyshirts?) Let us know; I have some screenprinting connections.

Part two of the interview:

Ah, the BBC. Their world news sounds like an apocalyptic rave and their inexplicably long-running, trippy strange “children’s” sci-fi show has one of the greatest pieces of synthesized music ever.

I’m running out of ways to say Delia Derbyshire is one of the most brilliant composers ever to use electricity, so let’s just get straight on to the bit where Coldcut show up and hold a big musical party for the Beeb Radiophonic Workshop and do their own kickass remix of Who’s opening titles and sounds. (Making the classic Doctor Who video feedback seem psychedelic? Not really a challenge. And yet these episodes always wound up with wandering around a rock quarry…)

Coldcut were there, the wonderfully-talented Dick Mills and Mark Ayres… sounds delicious. I’m still waiting for the Derbyshire music release, and I think there’s still more that could be done to document the UK’s electronic history — CDM stands at your aid, ye worthy workshop of sound.

BBC Electric Proms 2008: Coldcut
Via Carter Rosenberg’s tumblr and
vdmx co-creator David Lublin’s Twitter

Because it must be done, let us also consider Orbital’s classic remix (thanks, gwenhwyfaer) – provided it doesn’t make you hide behind the sofa:

It came as no surprise to me that Delia Derbyshire, composer and BBC Radiophonic Workshop maestra, would have created incredibly forward-thinking music in the 60s. But when one track seemed to predict IDM and modern electronica, the story of Derbyshire’s vintage “dance” track spread over the Interwebs, and even aroused suspicion of fakery.

Delia Derbyshire Recordings Found, Including Ahead-of-its-Time Dance Track

David Butler of the University of Manchester was one of two archivists who started undertaking the work of assembling a library of Derbyshire’s ground-breaking work. He writes in CDM’s comments that this is no BBC special effect: the recordings are very much real. He also clears up some of the confusion about their discovery, and offers more on the tantalizing cut “NOAH’s dance.”

It’s worth reading the whole comment (remember, you can also subscribe to CDM’s comment feed):

Here’s some very good news from the UK: pioneering electronic music composer, sound designer, BBC Radiophonic  virtuosa and Doctor Who theme creator Delia Derbyshire left us more recordings than previously thought. Some 267 tracks of music and documentation were found in her attic. The Radiophonic Workshop’s Mark Ayres – who has been single-handedly leading the charge to make sure the Workshop’s place in history is safe – had been preserving them. But now this archive will be a “living archive,” meaning, at last, we should get to hear them and new music will be commissioned for the archive from musicians and Workshop vets.

Among the treasures found in the archive is a short track of what could easily pass for an IDM cut released last year – except it was produced by Derbyshire in the late 60s, using far more primitive equipment, at a time when nothing sounded like that. When Paul Hartnoll of Orbital tells the BBC “This could be coming out next week on Warp Records,” he’s not exaagerating. Sci fi fanboyhood aside, I still think the endurance of the Doctor Who theme is partly because nothing sounds like it even today.

And there’s more – Hamlet sound design, original compositions, her signature bell tones. Even saying it’s forward looking isn’t really adequate. Other Derbyshire sounds, with their wailing electronic instruments and wooshes of synthesized noise, sound as though they were unearthed from some ancient era of electronica. Blue Veils and Golden Sands, a documentary about the Sahara, could pass for the music the aliens played on their spaceship hi-fis when they visited Earth and told people how to build the pyramids. (I’m kidding, but you get the point.)

I’m working on finding out what the plans are for the full archive as they evolve.

Lost tapes of the Dr Who composer [BBC News, via Radio 4’s Nigel Wrench]

Thanks to Ben Rogerson from MusicRadar for pointing to this first and sending it my way, and to Jim Warrier for the tip.