Delia Derbyshire’s work at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop in the 60’s was recognised initially for her realisation of the now iconic Doctor Who Theme. More recently though, she has been celebrated for her own compositions and experiments, at what was then the cutting edge of electronic music.

Blue Veils and Golden Sands

Here on 7″ vinyl for the first time are two of her pieces, one written for a TV documentary in 1967, ‘Blue Veils and Golden Sands’. In which she used her own voice and a handy green BBC lampshade: “I analysed the sound into all of its partials and frequencies, and took the 12 strongest, and reconstructed the sound on the workshop’s famous 12 oscillators to give a whooshing sound. So the camels rode off into the sunset with my voice in their hooves and a green lampshade on their backs.”

The Delian Mode

This was used as incidental music during ‘The Sky At Night’ in 1969. Finding critical acclaim in Gramophone Magazine’s review: “Blue Veils and Delian Mode are probably the finest music here. It may be no accident that the latter is reminiscent of the beginning of Xenakis’s Orient Occident, for Delia Derbyshire follows the analytical approach of the more sustained electronic compositions. If her best pieces seem the most imaginative here, and they are, it is because she more fully explores the implications of her material.”

Tracklist

A Side – The Delian Mode
B Side – Blue Veils and Golden Sands