Electrosonic

KPM1104 album cover

Back of KPM1104 album cover

GLOSPOT1104 album cover by Iker Spozio

Back of GLOSPOT1104 album cover

GLOSPOT1104 T-shirt artwork by Iker Spozio

Electrosonic is an album of “Library samples of electronic music for radio, TV and film industry.”

All tracks are credited to Harper/Russe/St George, where

• Harper = Don Harper
• Li De La Russe = Delia Derbyshire
• Nikki St George = Brian Hodgson

In the GLOSPOT1104 sleeve notes, John Cavanagh gives a loving and entertaining portrait of Delia and the circumstances surrounding the album's creation.

Brian Hodgson says:

Don was an Australian mood music composer. [...] I felt uncomfortable working with Don. At our first meeting he was pleasant enough, but I just felt he was using Delia and I to do something he couldn't do himself. [...] Harper got up my nose a lot, so I really kept out of it as much as I could. [...] There were some of my things which I just said to Don "have this" and gave him tracks, but I would say my contribution to it was much less than either Delia or Don's.

Track list

Delia's plan for the album targets the pieces for use in three areas:

• Documentary suite: Set of utility cues for use in documentaries made for instructional and educational purposes rather then entertainment (productions concerning science, research, mechanisation, pollution etc.)
• Drama suite
• Light suite

Most tracks seem to consist of a Delian backing with Harper making discordant noises over them but The Pattern Emerges, Liquid Energy (b) and Celestial Cantabile sound like pure Delia.

• A1 Quest (1:44)

• A2 Quest - fast (1:09)

• A3 Computermatic (1:15)

• A4 Frontier of Knowledge (2:06)

• A5 The Pattern Emerges (2:56)

• A6 Freeze Frame (1:42)

• A7 Plodding Power (1:52)

• A8 Busy Microbes (1:40)

• A9 Liquid Energy (a) (1:56)

• A10 Liquid Energy (b) (rhythm only) (0:58)

• B1 No Man's Land (1:52)

• B2 Depression (1:28)

• B3 Nightwalker (2:00)

• B4 Electrostings (0:21)

• B5 Electrobuild (0:22)

• B6 Celestial Cantabile (3:30)

• B7 Effervescence (2:04)

• B8 The Wizard's Laboratory (2:06)

• B9 Shock Chords (0:33)

Papers

• DD150440: Delia's papers relating to Electrosonic are enclosed in a folded sheet with "Received the sum of £200 for 39 Powis Sq (flat 8)" written on it in marker pen
• DD150638: Typewritten overall plan: DOCUMENTARY SUITE / DRAMA SUITE / LIGHT SUITE
• DD150510: "K.P.M. 7½ mono!" with Delia's list of corrections to be made to some of the tracks

Availability

• Released on vinyl by KPM Music Library as KPM1104 in 1972.
• Released in limited editions of 500 copies on 180gm audiophile green/pink/blue vinyl and CD by Glo-spot as GLOSPOT1104 in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
• It used to be available from Boa Melody Bar but they only have the T-shirt now.
• You can order the vinyl and hear some samples for free at Boomkat.
• Used to be available as a 40MB RAR archive at RapidShare.