yes, fantastic to see the albums reissued, of course. the Young Marble Giants comparison is very apt, I was only writing last week about how "Posed By Models" has *that* Paddy Kingsland guitar sound, but doubtless Baker was also an influence. I like Baker's cut-and-paste element; as with the YMGs, the shortness of the tracks actually makes them better for me.
hopefully we should see reissues of the other two essential 70s albums - The Fourth Dimension (all Paddy Kingsland's work, and mostly wonderful, though it sounds like nothing the RW had done previously and therefore Radiophonic purists hate it) and BBC Radiophonic Workshop 21, which anthologises their best work and perfectly captures the early material which was not released commercially at the time (remember a fellow Radiophonicist friend saying how much he regretted that there wasn't an RW LP in 1962). The latter will need "Time Beat" (in its full version) and "Waltz in Orbit" added, and the former ... well, surely The Changes soundtrack (I recall you mentioning that series, Jez) would be a perfect accompaniment.
I was emailing Mark Ayres about the reissue programme two years ago; presumably he's had quite a lot to do with these releases. Quite an achievement to get them released by the BBC itself because, according to sources inside the Beeb a few years back, there was "a corporate ignorance of it ever existing, or at least being extremely important". I can see why they tested the waters with the first two Dr Who CDs in 2000: you can always sell *anything* with the Dr Who name to a section of the audience. You can do the same with the Radiophonic Workshop name (though I doubt whether even I would buy "The Best of the RW: 1986-96") - it just needs better, more specialised marketing.
― robin carmody (robin carmody), Thursday, 31 October 2002 05:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
Mark Ayres is the CD producer, by the way.
― Jez (Jez), Thursday, 31 October 2002 07:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
the album you're thinking of won't have the full soundtrack, but I'm aware of a BBC album containing the title music to The Changes, because a friend of mine came across it a few years back. he works at Greenwich University - it's not the same friend as you have, is it? the album would have been a general compilation of BBC children's themes, IIRC, so maybe Kingsland's theme to the children's radio series "The Fourth Dimension" (whence the title to his LP came) would have been on there.
the full soundtrack to The Changes is essentially Mike Oldfield's "Hergest Ridge" if it had been written to order: Kingsland was working to a tight schedule (still writing the music to the later episodes while the opening ones were going out at the beginning of 1975) and that improved it no end, there was *absolutely no chance* of the self-indulgence of the era coming through.
the interesting thing is that, uniquely in my experience, the RW itself was not credited on the programme: at the end of each episode it reads simply "Music: Paddy Kingsland" (cf on some of the 80s/90s schools programmes which characterised their declining years, the credit was purely to the RW - the individual Radiophonicist/s were not identified). this pretty much confirms how far Kingsland went away from the standard evocations of electronic music: it was the antithesis of science fiction, the opposite of futurism itself, which is what interests me about it ... what happened to the Workshop when people didn't believe in the white heat of technology anymore.
oh, his fx towards the end of "Penda's Fen" in 1973, which at least one other contributor here knows all about, were equally great: they'd *have* to be on the CD.
― robin carmody (robin carmody), Thursday, 31 October 2002 09:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
haha Robin I bought this on vinyl when it was out ('79?) & I always wondered where the first 20 albums were.....I actually visited the Maida Vale RW in '79, got shown around by Brian Hodgson, and met Peter Howell (and another bloke like a Patrick Moore boffin, who was talking to Hodgson about a design for their latest sequencer).BH talked me through the imminent modular system they were getting, after I went on BBC canteen tea break with him and PH. (They quite liked Moroder, I recall, and I remember trying to explain Cabaret Voltaire & TG to them, plus the EDP Wasp synth (took one back to show them after I'd bought it the next day).
I've still got the info/leaflets they sent me about the place in '78/'79, you can mail me if you want a copy of them (probably nothing you don't already have though?)
― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Friday, 1 November 2002 02:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
"picasso" must have been discussed elsewhere on ilx, no? just heard it now, absolutely wowed! beautiful, floating, earthy, cosmic, totally in tune with my vibe
― brimstead, Saturday, 2 December 2017 18:25 (six years ago) link