An Electric Storm: Daphne, Delia and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Review based on a pdf supplied by the publisher.This is a book of two parts: the first deals with the history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the people who worked there. It starts by covering the rise of electronic music in the media of mainland Europe and the long battle Daphne Oram had, fighting against the entrenched snobbery within the BBC music department for the use of electronic music. The very name ‟Radiophonic” had its roots in the flat refusal of the BBC music department to refer to it as music.Eventually, the Radiophonic Workshop was formed, but it still suffered from a desperate lack of funding. The book goes on to cover all of the various people involved over the years and their work both within and outside of the Radiophonic Workshop. Like most of us, I was very familiar with the big names, such as Delia Derbyshire and John Baker. I was certainly aware of some of the others, but there were a few names that were new to me. It was particularly interesting to me to discover that Paddy Kingsland, whose work I’d collected in the psychedelic folk sub-genre, was a member of the Radiophonic Workshop.The book goes on to describe the effect the proliferation of synthesizer technology had on the workshop, and goes a long way to re-evaluating some of their perhaps less well thought of later work.Eventually, the story had to come to the end, and while I was somewhat aware of the damage Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government did to the BBC – basically because they decided the Beeb wasn’t sufficiently biased towards them – I hadn’t realised that, by replacing key figures within the corporation with people more sympathetic to their cause, they effectively brought on the closure of the Radiophonic Workshop.The second half of the book is given over to an extensive collection of reviews of just about every BBC Radiophonic Workshop related recording that had been released at the time of writing. It’s entertainingly written and will probably generate a sizeable shopping list for many readers. Again, I was surprised to discover that several albums that I own and enjoy on their individual merit are actually Radiophonic Workshop related.I think my one disappointment with this book is the lack of photographs, or album cover art in the second section. An extensively illustrated book would have been much nicer, but would obviously have been a considerably more expensive proposition. As it is, it’s an interesting, enjoyable read and is something fans of the Radiophonic Workshop’s recordings will refer back to fairly often.

An exhaustive but accessible guide to the history of the world famous Radiophonic Workshop which illuminates the characters and issues without bogging the reader down too much in the technicalities of creating electronic music. Plus, what must be the first exhaustive discography (with reviews of every item) of the Workshop and its members.