Jul 31, 2008

Warp Records present the BBC Radiophonic Workshop?

Delia Derbyshire
A dusty tape among scores stored in an attic has just blown apart the entire history of dance music.

Among the possessions of Delia Derbyshire (pictured), knob twiddler for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, was the recording of an experimental dance piece that simply should not exist.

It sounds like the sort of thing you would expect from Aphex Twin, Massonix or Sabres Of Paradise, yet it was recorded in the late 60s.

As a piece of production well ahead of its time, it has the same woo factor as Pink Floyd's On The Run, or The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows.

And yet it's more advanced than those pieces, as though some beardy electronica fellow is messing about with a TARDIS and not telling us.

"That could be coming out next week on Warp Records," bleeps ex-Orbital man Paul Hartnoll, who, incidentally, did a cracking cover version of the Workshop's Dr Who theme tune.

Decide for yourself - jump to Delia Derbyshire's experimental 'dance' track on this BBC news piece.

Jul 19, 2008

Tim & Daisy make Jay & Bob look like ****ing Bert & Ernie

Spaced (short)

Very Short List published this sweet, concise tribute to Spaced on Thursday:

"Instead of Jay and Silent Bob, Spaced delivers Daisy and Tim, twentysomething roommates... who live and die under pop culture’s influence, the kind of people still recovering from the disappointment of Star Wars, Episode 1...." Click here read the whole thing.
But it made me wonder: are there really people out there, living breathing human-beens, who haven't clapped eyes on everyone's favourite Shaun Of The Dead prequel?

If you've never seen the series Spaced, leave a comment. I want to know you exist. And I want a full and frank explanation for your neglectful behaviour as well. Tsch.

I'll get back to blogging about electronic music soon. I promise.

Jul 14, 2008

Wait, westerly wanderer, there's a big carrot-y creature in your way

Mongolian Death Worm

I was just scooting over the Taklamakan desert on Google Earth and I was startled by a Mongolian Death Worm (pictured).

I wasn't really expecting to find something like that in the rippling nowhereness of a huge desert (I had been low-flying my way from Tokyo, via Beijing, through some random places beginning with X that I had never heard of).

Still, I was comforted by the knowledge it reacts to yellow in the same way bulls charge at red things, and if you agitate it, it will gob poison at you and dissolve your face.

Oh and it also kills people by zapping them like a Dalek. Or God when he starts one of his big lightning storms.

Anyway, I'm continuing on a westerly wander. I should be in Iran by midnight.