I'm just as high in a rut looking up
as I was on a cloud looking down
The first
album by
White Noise, a collaboration of electronics graduate, musician and
double bass player
David Vorhaus, with
Brian Hodgson and
Delia Derbyshire of the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
An Electric Storm was released by
Island Records in 1968. It was re-released on
CD in 1996, but the run did not last long. It is a
rare find.
With its
striking cover, a white
lightning bolt and text on a plain
black background, the album is just an
acid trip¹ from start to
finish. Originally, the white on the cover was to be screen-printed in
luminous ink, but this was
rejected by the record company when the
vinyl version was released, and then
again for the CD edition.
The
majority of the music is created by
tape loops, and
frequency-shifting techniques; all performed on
analogue tape machines with no
synchronisation apart from the on/off switch on the
mains socket. All editing was performed by
painstakingly duplicating,
cutting and
taping together short lengths of tape.
All string parts (double bass,
violas and
violins) were created by Vorhaus playing the bass, and then speeding up the recording until the correct pitch was reached. In addition
live and
manipulated drums and
vocals and early
synthesizers appear.
Tracklist:
- Love without Sound 2:57 (Derbyshire/Vorhaus)
- My Game of Loving 3:38 (Duncan/Vorhaus)
- Here Come the Fleas 2:31 (McDonald/Vorhaus)
- Firebird 2:43 (Derbyshire/Vorhaus)
- Your Hidden Dreams 4:25 (McDonald/Vorhaus)
- The Visitations 11:45 (McDonald/Vorhaus)
- The Black Mass: An Electric Storm in Hell c7:00 (White Noise)
Major
highlights include
My Game of Loving in which an
orgy was created from various pieces of tape; but it just didn't sound right, so Vorhaus recorded a
genuine orgy to mix with it.
Why d'you do (shut up) the things that
most peo(quit nagging)ple frown at?
You haven't washed yourself in weeks. (Go back to sleep)
A part of the bouncy and playful
Here Come the Fleas was used by
Kenny Everett's radio programme as a jingle, although not the part where a
Jamaican neighbour bangs on the wall and asks them to turn it down, because he can't hear his
steel band.
The Visitations was recorded over 3 months, and truly is the highlight of the album. A trip on a
motorcycle; a
fatal crash; and a
ghostly visitation, filling nearly twelve minutes.
The Black Mass should be an
anticlimax, since it was recorded in a single
day to fill the remaining seven minutes of tape. However, the drum and voice
jam created rounds off the album nicely.
Credits:
Source:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2554/whitenoise.html