Here are some micro masterpieces of machine music on another brilliant release from Duel Planet. Eric Siday, like Raymond Scott, started his career in Jazz. Both would become involved in electronic music and commercials. In London of the 1920s Siday played violin in Ray Starita's Piccadilly Revels. I'm assuming it's him clearly heard on the intro to this...
If 'hot' Jazz is a little too old-fashioned for you, line it up with a track by The Caretaker and play them together to create your own haunted ballroom experience. I haven't done it, but I'm sure it would work. And you will be fusing Past and Present just like the sonic time-traveller you always wanted to be, won't you?
Like the subject of
the other recent Duel Planet release, Don Harper, Siday made music for the Doctor Who TV series which, as you know, inadvertently proved to be a source of some of the finest electronic music made, even though it wasn't composed to be significant outside of it's context. The sounds of a brave, new, often nightmarish world were beamed into the homes of millions, thus subconsciously preparing occupants to embrace avant-garde works by the like of Berio, Stockhausen etc, whose album sold millions and were regularly played on Radio Two. All because The Radiophonic Workshop production line recorded weird sounds for Doctor Who which subsequently changed the face of British and worldwide music irrevocably, rendering drippy love songs and Rock 'n' Roll irrelevant right up to this day...
...sorry, that only happened in a parallel universe of my own making...
What could be better suited to our wonderful techno age of reduced attention spans than a collection of pieces which last no longer than 3mins 9secs? And that length in this context is akin to a Wagner opera since most barely break the 1min barrier - perfect!
In these busy times when Work-to-own-crap, TV, DVD, PCs, social networking, blogging, Tweeting, scrolling though Pinterest images (more! more!) etc demand so much of our time (oh how willingly we give it!) not only is the idea of listening to a whole album absurd, but so to is paying attention to a single which might last four minutes - four minutes! How many sites could you visit in that time? About 10! Whereas here we have gems such as The Machines in two parts which still only total 2mins 14 secs! Never mind Meteors, which shower down for just 37secs. Sidereal Vibrations is a whole 1min 36secs long but the time is filled admirably with chattering electronics and what sounds like a theremin echoing the glory days of a dreamy past when this bizarre new instrument could render mystery and magic imaginable to enthralled listeners.
The Ultra Sonic Perception is the Sound of Now from yesterday which even contains elements of yesterday's yesterdays in such charming tracks as The Concerto To The Stars with it's twilight zone atmosphere backing Latin percussion and old-time Pop classical piano - bravo! Pavane is equally pleasing with an upright bass walking us through a somewhat noirish mood to which one might imagine a cartoon private eye pondering the puzzle of a dame who spells danger.
It's all wonderful, this collection of snapshot moods made for stories, the contents of which we can only imagine and that's part of the fun.
