Daphne Oram is the great grandmother of modern British electronic music. Thanks to her, the Radiophonic Workshop trod a fearless path into the new world of electro-acoustic experimentation. Until now very little of Oram’s work has been available, save for a 60s EP and a fragment on a CD compilation. Now, thanks to this lovingly curated double-CD, just about anything that wasn’t available is.
Straight from Oram’s archive come soundtrack recordings, adverts and experiments from the sublime to the ridiculous. She records her cat; makes music for Lego; composes for drama. This may sound throwaway, but it isn’t. In the early 60s she developed ‘Oramics’ (a method of drawing sound onto film) and several of the cues let us enjoy the results. Also included are more concrete pieces, sound for installations, lecture fragments and a range of oddness from ’59 to ’77. It’s full of na�ve joy, tempered by a darkish lonely tinge; strangely simple, yet oddly complex.
Our one criticism is that there’s so much here. We’d have been happy with Disc One and could have easily waited for more. Having said that, it offers over two-and-a-half hours of music that must be heard. Basic and raw, this is the early foundations of our future music.
