Tape Leaders: A Compendium of Early British Electronic Music Composers by Ian Helliwell. Sound On Sound, 2016. £29.00
Tape Leaders: A Compendium of Early British Electronic Music Composers by Ian Helliwell. Sound On Sound, 2016. £29.00
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磁带领袖：早期英国电子音乐作曲家纲要，作者：Ian Helliwell，Sound On Sound，2016 年。£29.00
DOI：
10.1017/s0040298217000195
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
James Gardner
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
James Gardner
在我的十几岁的时候，一本插图的NME百科全书是Rock的百科全书，这是发现各种乐队的起点。内容，但是它经过了良好的研究，富含内容和诱人。早期的英国电子音乐领导者装饰着许多作曲家及其家庭制片厂的照片，以及时期电子和录音杂志的大量复制品，将类似Scarfolk的氛围借给了企业217页的景观格式精装本及其参与的15轨CD代表了六年的勇敢的工作。 Hellowell在他的读者指南和介绍中阐明了他的摊位，简洁而坚定地主张重新评估和重新评估他所涵盖的更晦涩的人物和群体，并施放它们是英国电子音乐的深色物质：一开始就陈述了大多数看不见的，但令人惊讶的是倾斜的标准。工作“他的意思是”元素，例如不和谐，磁带操纵，声音colage，电子音调产生和机器制作的音色'，但他排除了“作曲家”。 。 - 排除乔纳森·哈维（Jonathan Harvey）的同时，其第一张磁带的历史可以追溯到1970年。但是，可以理解的是，某些任意决定可能是对于夏洛尔（Liminal）的案例，汇票的“全部主观”评级系统是自动的，但有帮助，``承诺因素''，“默默无闻的商人”和“录音率”。第一个部分。 Tristram Cary，Delia Derbyshire和Daphne Oram都超过了意外事件（例如William Burroughs），鲜为人知的（George Newson）和彻头彻尾的晦涩难懂当然，这些角色都通过将肉添加到骨头上来承认这一关键的调查作曲家的生活。由于空间的限制，Helliwell对作曲家的作品和美学的讨论往往是敷衍的。库珀，布莱恩·丹尼斯（Brian Dennis）和后来 - 理查德·奥顿（Richard Orton）带来了创造潜力
In my early teens, a formative reference book was the Illustrated NME Encyclopedia of Rock, a jumping-off point for the discovery of all manner of bands. Ian Helliwell’s Tape Leaders strongly reminded me of that tome. His work is academic in neither tone nor content, but it is well researched, rich in content and seductive. It may serve as a useful springboard from which scholars – or the intrigued ‘lay listener’ – can dive into the unsuspectedly deep and murky end of early British electronic music. The ‘Illustrated’ aspect is relevant here. Helliwell’s book is lavishly visual, as one might expect from an author who, in addition to being a composer and instrument-builder, is also a film-maker. Tape Leaders is adorned with many photos of composers and their home studios as well as copious reproductions from period electronics and recording magazines, lending a Scarfolk-like ambience to the enterprise. The 217-page landscape-format hardback, with its accompanying 15-track CD, represents over six years of intrepid work. Many of the primary materials and equipment discussed here have been lost or discarded, so Helliwell’s project is as much archeology as cultural history. Helliwell sets out his stall in his Readers’ Guide and Introduction, concisely and cogently arguing for a reassessment and reappraisal of the more obscure figures and groups he covers, casting them as the dark matter of British electronic music: mostly invisible, yet surprisingly numerous and obliquely influential. Criteria for inclusion are stated at the outset: ‘British-based composers who created experimental work with electronics and magnetic tape’ before 1971. By ‘experimental work’ he means ‘elements such as dissonance, tape manipulation, sound collage, electronic tone generation and machine-made timbres’, but he excludes ‘jobbing composers who . . . occasionally incorporated electronic textures into otherwise conventional compositions’. This might explain the absence of Barry Gray, but it’s strange that he does include people such as Alan Ridout and Geoffrey Wright – who each seem to have produced just one piece of electronic/tape music – while excluding Jonathan Harvey, whose first tape piece dates from 1970. It’s understandable, however, that some arbitrary decisions may have been necessary with liminal cases. Helliwell’s ‘wholly subjective’ ratings system for the compendium’s entries is self-parodic yet helpful, with scores for ‘Commitment Factor’, ‘Obscurity Quotient’ and ‘EM recording availability’. The main body of Tape Leaders has five sections. The first, ‘Electronic Music Composers A–Z’, occupies more than half of the book, and its 89 biographical entries include well-known figures such as Tristram Cary, Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram. These are outnumbered, however, by the unexpected (e.g. William Burroughs), the lesser-known (George Newson), and the downright obscure (Michael Dress). Hugh Davies’s International Electronic Music Catalog included many of these characters, of course. Helliwell acknowledges this crucial survey as a motivating influence; by adding flesh to its bones, he brings its composers to life. Helliwell’s overall tone is ‘unashamedly positive and enthusiastic’ although he does, for example, reserve some barbs for Brian Eno, and harbours doubts about the development costs of the Oramics machine. Generally the entries are intriguing and entertaining but, perhaps due to constraints of space, Helliwell’s discussion of the composers’ work and aesthetics tends to be rather perfunctory. One strand of activity he emphasises is the work done by the likes of Roy Cooper, Brian Dennis and – later – Richard Orton to bring the creative potential of