Else Marie Pade ‎– "Face It" (Dacapo Records ‎– 8.224233) 1957-1970

Denmarks version of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was basically just Else Marie Pade, who made weird aural backing tracks for Danish Radiophonic plays.
Musique Concrete is very much in evidence for Symphonie Magnétophonique, but the Little Mermaid, is very much in the realms of Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshires work for the BBC. For us non-Danish speakers, it sound even weirder because of the narration of this Classical Danish fairytale,which sounds like someone speaking backwards to the average Anglo-Saxon ear.
Face It's title track is where it gets really weird,with some unknown Danish phraze concerning a certain ranting German dictator, repeated in a loop,with filtered extracts from one of Adolf's very nasty nazi rally speeches.This was a full decade before William Bennett decided to do the same thing, rather less subtly I may add, for his various Throbbing Gristle aping Come Org projects.Especially unsubtle were his remixes of Maurizio Bianchi's work
Else Marie got there first,and she even fought against the Nazi's in the resistance too,before GPO and Bennett were even a twinkle in their fathers eye,and still in short trousers when these recordings were made.Having said that, I severely doubt they ever heard any of Pade's work....even if they were Danish.


Tracklist:

1 Symphonie Magnétophonique (1958) 19:27
2 The Little Mermaid 42:54 (1957-8)
3 Face It 7:58 (1970)

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Else Marie Pade ‎– "Electronic Works 1958-1995" (Important Records ‎– IMPREC406) 2014

Denmark is famous for more than just great Bacon and Carlsberg lager isn't it?...well...er....no, but they did have another one of those female electronic music pioneers,who unwittingly was one of the few persons in the world making weird noises in the fifties.
A veteran of the noble Danish resistance in world war two, from a country that led the nazi-occupied world as an example in its zero levels of collaboration,and the sheltering of its jews; Else worked for the state sponsored Danish Broadcasting Corporation, where she produced very early groundbreaking electronic and concrete compositions for Radiophonic poems and Radio drama productions,like Faust,and the Little Mermaid.Rather like Daphne Oram had been doing in th UK.

Else in action manipulating something that looks rather like an electronic bra?..I notice in the fine tradition of female electronicists,she's got a cigarette on the go.

Like Daphne,and Delia Derbyshire,they were just seen as employees doing what they were told.....a job.Subsequently they were ignored and forgotten.That is,until the younger generations tried to discover the roots of this music,and find out where this music that dominates the modern world comes from.So, from the early 2000's onwards she was now rightly recognized as an electronic music pioneer during her lifetime.


Tracklist:

Faust Suite
Prolog I Himlen 4:18
Faust & Mefisto 6:59
Faust & Margrethes Kærlighed 7:22
Margrethes Fordømmelse 4:13
Rejsen Til Bloksbjerg Og Valborgsnat 8:25
Epilog 4:51

Lyd & Lys 4:41
Syv Cirkler 7:17
Etude 5:33

Illustrationer
Himmelrummet 6:53
Havkongens Slot 7:06
Alfeland 6:10
Kong Vinter 6:11

Glasperlespil I 7:42
Glasperlespil II 7:58

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