Electric Roulette Hero #1: Delia Derbyshire

In an industry where the word 'hero' is usually  prefixed by 'guitar', and generally translates as 'drunk, preening misogynistic buffoon who has made a pile of cash schlepping his way around the world churning out Chuck Berry knock-offs and taking drugs', our sense of what constitutes true heroism has been almost entirely eroded. Therefore I have selected  Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) as our first Electric Roulette Hall of Famer primarily because during her life she exhibited genuine heroic qualities, and because her achievements remain relatively unsung. And because she was really cool.

.1. She was insanely English. Now, truth be told, I'm not much of an Anglophile. Infact, I'm largely uninterested in English history and culture, period. Almost everything I hold dear, 'cept for our countryside, The Beatles and Yorkshire Tea, is American. I could tell you more about the US v USSR 1980 Winter Olympics Ice Hockey Final ('The Miracle On Ice') than about the 1966 World Cup Final, and Cheers means more to me than Only Fools And Horses ever will. Delia Derbyshire, however, is so wonderfully, undeniably, charmingly English that it is impossible to resist. For a start, she was called Delia. Derbyshire. Her surname is an actual English county, and her first name is synonymous with cakes. It's the most English name ever. She's got this whole stiff upper lip, make-do-and-mend, George Martin, white lab coat, tea break vibe, and this is an Englishness I can get on board with. No other culture on the planet could have produced a Delia Derbyshire, and that can make us proud.

.2. She spent the best years of her career making weird, wonderful, freakish and futuristic music for TV scores on primitive electronic equipment as part of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop that dudes like yer Aphex Twins and Orbitals were still trying to figure out 40 years later. Seriously. This lady produced some of the out-therest out there music you'll ever hear, working from the basement of the BBC or in the homes of like-minded sonic adventurers...ambient drones, looping bleeps and shrieks, terrifying howls, disembodied voices...regular sounds stretched and warped beyound all recognition...and all with this terrifying, druggy, half-remembered children's TV series-of-the-mind atmosphere...the pop and crackle of analogue ambiance...remarkable. Delia was doing this first, better than it's ever been done since, and without a fuss. Check out examples of this otherworldly 'music of the spheres', here.

.3. She did the Doctor Who theme. Imagine hearing this in 1963. Wow.

.4. She was in a 'band' called Unit Delta Plus, which is a ridiculously cool name for a band. (I'm getting a t-shirt made). Unit Delta Plus was established in 1966 by Derbyshire and fellow boffin sound-manglers Brian Hodgson and Peter Zinovieff with the stated intent of creating electronic music and promoting it's use in TV, film and advertising. Aside form their own electronic festivals, the most famous event at which UDP performed was the Million Volt Light & Sound Rave held at London's Chalk Farm Roundhouse in 1967. It was at this event that Paul McCartney's semi-mythical, Beatles holy-grail 15-minute avant-garde piece 'Carnival Of Light' was played.

.5. In other Beatles news, Paul McCartney considered asking Delia to provide some electronic music for the instrumental backing to Yesterday, before choosing to use the string quartet.

.6. She helped produce the scariest freak-out electropsychedelic LP ever, 1968's 'An Electric Storm', by David Vorhous' White Noise project. Features a song called 'Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell', which is just plain terrifying, a distorted concerto for percussion, tape loops and screams, sure to induce total brain-implosion and bad acid-flashbacks in all but the hardiest of aural psychonauts. Another landmark electronic recording, fans of Beefheart, Neu!, early Velvets etc etc will surely dig the most.

.7. In the mid 70s she got sorta bummed-out about the state of music as she saw it and quit to go work in a book store. I wish Phil Collins had done the same.

.8. In the mid 90s she began to recognise in the more cerebral quarters of the dance scene a similar pioneering spirit to that of her 60s peer-group, and worked with ex-Spaceman 3 dude Sonic Boom amongst others on bringing her musical career full-circle.

Paul McCartney. Spacemen 3. Doctor Who. Terrifying Hammer Horror Psyche LPs. 'Unit Delta Plus'. Quite a CV. Delia Derbyshire was a unique talent, a woman who did not play an acoustic guitar or write folk-poetry, but instead manipulated wonky analogue oscillators, synthesisers and loops of tape to produce Brand New Sounds. Her natural working environment was not the back room of a pub or Wembley Stadium but a musty BBC laboratory. She was a scientist, a student of noise, somebody who took risks and made great leaps forward. She was one of the great producers, a George Martin, a Phil Spector, a Brian Wilson, with a distinctive signature style wholly her own, an artist obsessed with the possibilities of sound. All in all, she was a singularly unusual pop music hero, and this is precisely why her work, and her life, should be treasured. Paul Fuzz

Comments

[mof gimmers]

*Jumps to feet and begins to applaud wildly*

BRAVO! BRAVO! DAMN STRAIGHT! BRAVO!

[Claire]

Fantastic article! People need to appreciate Delia more.

I actually got here googling "Delia Derbyshire T-Shirt"... I don't think anyone has actually made one, although you never know, but I wanted to make one for myself and was seeking inspiration. Now I've read this I think I might make a Unit Delta Plus one instead.

[Sean]

They do Claire:

http://www.apexonline.com/melodybar/cataf~1.htm

Scroll down the page and you'll find a beautiful design by Iker Spozio.