Daedelus remains one of my favorite electronic music personalities. A virtuoso of his hand-built Monome (the early prototype) dressed in Victorian garb, he always manages to exude charisma in his music. And sure enough, as opposed to the usually bland, generic, and hideous emails I get in my inbox about artists (my eyes ache the moment they see a press release), I get two gifts.

Music

First, a free MP3 from the upcoming Love to Make Music To, his first full-length album to go on Ninja Tune:

MP3: Make It So ft. Michael Johnson (XXX-Change Remix)
http://www.terrorbird.alphapupserver.com/music/make_it_so_rmxxx.mp3

(Uh, if I happen to overload Terrorbird’s bandwidth with that link, let me know and I’ll fix it.)

+ Stories

And then, we get this fanciful, Jules Verne-esque (ahem, fictional) story of an inventor who, through magical electrocution.

It’s all too beautiful. Let me share the whole result, for two reasons:

1. If ever you’ve wondered how to speak to the press, do it like this. Please? (And press, get your Edwardian and your Victorian straight. Jeez.)

2. Every detail makes me smile. (World’s Fair? Electro-acoustic album with your wife? Did you write this for me personally?)

Hmmm… nope, rest of my inbox is still the usual drivel. I’ll just read this a second time.

1893. Chicago. The World’s Fair to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America opens. In the entourage of one Nikola Tesla, the renegade pioneer of modern electricity, travels Alfred Darlington, a young inventor from Los Angeles.

On only the second day of the fair, Darlington is electrocuted in a terrible accident, pronounced dead and taken to the morgue. Two days later, an attendant there hears knocking from one of the drawers where the corpses are kept. Armed with a shotgun and whiskey he opens the drawer to find the young Alfred not only alive and well but babbling about a future worlds he has visited and asking that everyone now calls him "DAEDELUS".

The UK electronic music scene lost its pioneer Tristram Cary this week, so it’s the perfect time to look back again at the marvels of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Low-budget but long-running Doctor Who is unlikely to be remembered for breaking new ground in, say, fancy props, sets, or visual effects (though they did plenty with what they had). But when it comes to sound and music, the BBC’s DIY approach to sound, ranging from Who to "serious" classical music (even my composition teacher Thea Musgrave worked there) remains significant today.

The BBC is again offering a look inside the storied workshop, now at its 50th birthday. (As their designs stand the test of five decades, I think perhaps electronic sound isn’t just about novelty after all.)

And one of their best finds? A lampshade.

Four sound effects that made TV history [ BBC News Magazine; happily this video works worldwide]

Thanks to Andy Tekkaz for the tip.

Yes, the green lampshade pictured above was Delia Derbyshire’s favorite toy to sample, a reminder that sometimes the non-electrified object is an electronic composer’s best friend. Other gems: the room for the largest synth the BBC ever owned, ominously titled "The Delaware" like some kind of WWII aircraft carrier, which wouldn’t fit through the door. Or room #12, in which the Doctor Who theme was born. Or what must be the world’s oddest home-built mixer, encased in plexiglass. Or, below, the suitcase synth the Workshop custom-built. (Note the prominence of EMS VCS3 synths, designed by Tristram Cary.) Updated: Okay, I was confused as well by the terminology "custom-built" in regards to the synth (evidently a Synthi-A), but then again, given the relationship between EMS and BBC, it’s possible the Radiophonic Workshop was the initial customer. Anyone have any idea?

Host and Radiophonic vet Dick Mills also settles any lingering controversy about how you make a Dalek voice: it’s what (I think) is a VCS3, a ring modulator tuned to 30 Hz, and a little bass attenuation (Dick corrects his colleague on that). If that doesn’t sound like a Dalek, you’re probably not shouting enough.

It’s been a rough week for electronic music — having lost Bebe Barron, we’ve now lost one of the other great early pioneers of electronic music, South Australian Tristram Cary.

Tristram is credited by some as the father of tape music, originating tape music techniques in World War II. He’s notorious to the general public and sci fi fans as the composer of the music for the Daleks in Doctor Who (along with other music) — like an evil counterpart to Delia Derbyshire, who built the studio Cary would later use. But he was also a pivotal composer of music for film, electronics, voice, and instrument alike, a well-known Australian music critic, a leading figure in studios and academies, and, oh, yeah, he did the visual design (product design, really) for the legendary portable VCS3 "Putney" synth from EMS, the synth maker of which he was a founding Director.

It’s safe to say that, out of this web of contributions to electronic sound, Tristram Cary is another of those people who charted the course for what music technology is today. From the technology to his extensive music to his work in popularizing musique concrete in England, his impact is felt even by those who don’t know his name.

Christian Haines writes to let us know of Tristram passing, evidently following a long illness.

If you don’t know his work, there’s no time like the present to discover what he’s given us.

Official Tristram Cary Site

Wikipedia article, with lots of references and an extensive composition list

Resources at the Australian Music Centre

EMS, the "Moog Music of England", lives on (apologies to our UK readers, but Americans are just discovering EMS); see also the Synthi blog

And for a little Tristram Cary listening:

Trios LP by Tristram Cary (EMS) is a trio of EMS synth plus turntables; full tracks on the Synthi blog courtesy the composer. Really brilliant sounds:

And, you know, looking at all of this I’m reminded of why things like the Dalek connection are important. For whatever reason, mysterious science fiction worlds have been the entry point for listeners around the world into the sometimes alien and frightening new timbres of electronic music. We’re all lucky enough to have grown up in a time in which we’re challenged to create music that evokes other parts of the universe, real and imaginary.

Christian sends along a complete obituary provided by the Director of the Elder Conservatorium, David Lockett:

There are pioneers and artists — and then there are people whose impact is great enough that they become inseparable with the history of a medium. Bebe Barron, along with husband Louis Barron, was far enough ahead of her time that her ideas remain futuristic today. The Barrons didn’t just produce the first full-length electronic film score with Forbidden Planet; they created an ambient sonic world between music and special effects, and tied it to cybernetic theories. That score stands in contrast to films still dominated by Alfred Newman-style, post-Wagnerian theatrics. Today, artists are only just re-discovering the possibilities of electronic sound without the use of synths and samplers, built from scratch as the Barrons did.

Bebe Barron’s work went well beyond Forbidden Planet, however. She went on to produce music for film, tape, and technology well into her later life. She was an early leader of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music, and continued — with her husband, and as a solo composer following his death — to lead the way in finding new compositional purposes for electronic sound. (And apparently even seduction through witchcraft! Viva electronics!)

We’ve seen a lot of obituaries in the three and a half years of this site; there’s no question that a generation of composers is passing into history. Bebe died of natural causes at age 82. I was struck by a quote from Barry Schrader, who called her "the last of the pioneering composers of classical studio electronic music." That may be, but listening to Bebe’s sounds and ideas, I wonder what the next generations might still be capable of pioneering, and who will take up the radical element from 1950s and 60s sound and bring it into the coming decades.

The best insight I’ve heard into the Barron’s work comes from a 2005 interview with Bebe on NPR’s Morning Edition:

The Barrons: Forgotten Pioneers of Electronic Music

Matrixsynth has an enormous obituary with lots of background information — a must-read:

RIP Bebe Barron

And here’s Bebe’s last interview, from the beginning of this year, speaking about Anais Nin. That’s poignant to me — my great aunt and uncle were part of the New York circle that ran with Anais Nin and crowd. It’s a reminder to value your crazy and radical creative friends, to keep supporting what they’re doing to enjoy the short time we all have to make art.

Anais Nin has the best quote — she described the Barrons’ music as sounding like "a molecule that has stubbed its toes."

We had a blast (ahem) Saturday night at the Yuri’s Night party at NASA Ames Research Center; stay tuned for video and more, including the results of the Futuristic Musical Design Challenge. But that’s no reason the party has to end. If you’ve listened through all 55 songs on the 45 Tribute and want still more music, Amon Tobin and Deru have kindly donated music mixes for the yuricdm.com minisite. It’s good listening to pick up your week:

Exclusive Free Mix: Amon Tobin, Back from Space

Exclusive Free Mix: Deru

And here are the direct links to listen / download:

Download the Amon Tobin Yuri’s Night mix [contains NSFW audio samples]

Download Deru’s Free Mix

Updated! If you were having problems with the links, it’s because I made a mistake generating URLs with Amazon S3, and some browsers (IE and Safari but evidently not Firefox) get picky. It should be fixed now.

For more on Amon Tobin, our friends at Current TV have this interview on the Foley Room album — not exactly news, but inspiring stuff, nonetheless. Anyone who’s a found sound sound design fan (as I know many of you are in your own work) should get a kick out of it:

Let us know what you think of the music in comments. (Truly — thoughtful criticism is welcome as well as praise.)

Hello from Ground Control: this week, I’ll be coming to you live from CDM’s micro-blog for Yuri’s Night Bay Area, ground zero for the global space rave celebrating human exploration of the cosmos. CDM’s challenge: to bring all the goodness up close and personal to you, from California to wherever you are on Planet Earth.

Watch the minisite now, during the event, and in the couple of weeks following at:

http://yuricdm.com

or subscribe to the yuricdm.com RSS feed.

Yuri’s Night needs special nerdster love for a number of key reasons — a huge lineup of music, art, and science, plus a special CDM event and booth:

• Music: The likes of Amon Tobin, Tycho, Christopher Willits, and many others … and our friend Ganucheau, too
• Motion: Interactive installations and visualists everywhere, including our man Joshua with his incredible Wii-powered SuperDraw, built with Processing
• Space and Science and Games: Here’s where I get especially excited — it’s an event on the airfield at Ames Research Center, not typically a place non-NASA employees can go, and we actually get to play there and listen some of the world’s top scientists. And Will Wright (creator of SimCity, Sims, and the upcoming Spore with its generative music) will be there, too, just in case your geek circuits weren’t overloaded yet.
• CDM @ the Hangar: We’re running a special Futuristic Music Design Challenge competition, and we’ll have the CDM booth for much of the evening where various musical / visual makers will be showing off their inventions (with more of our friends elsewhere at the event). So stop by and say hi.

How nerdster-chic is this: a global convergence of the exploration of space exploration, ecological savvy, technological innovation, and musical-motional performance, in honor of Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launching the first-ever human flight into space? Described as “Cinco de Mayo” for space, Yuri’s Night is a 35-nation cosmorave. It was big last year. It’s going to be much bigger this year.

What’s all this space stuff got to do with music and motion? Everything: music and visual performance are a big part of this party, as Sun Ra-loving, space-inspired, Space Age technologist artists push creative tech. (Amon Tobin is headlining, Will Wright is keynote speaker.) Winter Music what? I want my space fiesta.

Attention, Cosmonauts

CDM is involved, and you can be, too, wherever you are in the world:

There are synthesists, and then there are people like Phil Dodds. He’s perhaps best-known as the man who wrangled the (real) ARP 2500 synthesizer in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind so that it could perform an elaborate jam session for (fictional) aliens. But he left an extensive legacy of achievements that helped make music technology more than science fiction.

Our friend Yann Seznec (aka The Amazing Rolo) writes:

You’ve mentioned Phil Dodds on your site before, the guy who played the ARP 2500 in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He was VP of Engineering at ARP, he wrote all of their service manuals and schematics and helped design and build many ARP synths, from the 2600 to the Chroma. He then went on to work for Kurzweil, developing digital piano systems. He was even involved in the creation of the MIDI standard. He also happened to be my uncle. I thought you might be interested to know that he died last weekend.

Our condolences to Yann and all of Phil’s friends and colleagues. There’s some really moving commentary at the Aviation Industry CBT Committee blog (really, because after all of his work in synthesis, he also was a driving force behind a distributed online learning initiative for the Department of Defense):

“What are we saying to each other?”

That was a single line, spoken by the sound engineer at the end of Close Encounters of a Third Kind, as he played chords and a friendly alien spaceship played music back.

The Passing of Philip V.W. Dodds

… and more on Wikipedia:

Phil Dodds

We talk a lot about tools, of course, but that question of “what are we saying to each other” couldn’t have deeper resonance for what we do. And if aliens do show up, thanks to Phil Dodds, I think we might put on a great show.

Game and film composer Gary Kibler is back from Tuesday’s TENORI-ON launch event with words and images reflecting upon this new instrument. (See comments for lots more discussion, of course!) And for some reason, he’s been playing with his mashed potatoes… -Ed.

See also: Yamaha TENORI-ON Launch: Photos, Videos, Interviews, Demos, Details, and a Music Box

THE TENORI-ON : I know this. This means something …

Literally what TENORI-ON means in Japanese is "sound in your palm" but what I came away feeling after hearing Toshio Iwai’s story and later experiencing this innovative musical device for myself at Yamaha’s UK Launch event last Tuesday was more akin to the Richard-Dreyfuss-Close-Encounters quote. Never mind that the light-and-audio-synched performances can bring back visions of that film’s alien jam session.* I may not be articulate enough to explain fully why or how I was so affected by my short time with this snazzy gadget (my logical working-musician-self keeps on telling me that, measured by today’s music hardware standards, this is still just mashed potatoes, albeit in a very cool shape) but I do consider myself self-aware enough to appreciate the very real visceral impact it had on me. I’ve a sense the TENORI-ON is important, but not in a way most of us can fully appreciate today or probably anytime soon.

Let me start off by saying what the TENORI-ON is not:

• It is not a programmable synthesizer or sound module.
• Although it can hold some limited samples, it is not a sampler.
• It is not a compositional tool, not in the traditional sense at least.
• It has a tactile x/y matrix element but is not a Kaoss pad.
• It is definitely not the type of highly flexible "soup-to-nuts" production workstation device most working musicians would use to compose and produce their next musical opus on.

I find it commendable that Yamaha’s marketing manager, Peter Peck, was very upfront in stating the first two points at the outset, especially in a market where so many new music products attempt to be everything to everybody. It also appears to be the reason, although this wasn’t confirmed, why they have decided to market and sell these in record stores rather than music stores here in the UK.

What the TENORI-ON is:

• A well-designed piece of interactive art.
• An innovative and fully-contained musical instrument that allows anyone to easily produce very listenable music.
• A very tactile feedback-loop experience. The interplay of the lights with sound is incredibly mesmerizing and draws you in immediately.
• Incredibly immersive.
• Expensive - approx $1200 USD.