A presentation featuring Joe Meek's fantastical lunar stereophonic sound adventure, I Hear A New World; both the celebrated 1991 RPM restoration and the original unreleased 1960 concept album; placed in broader international context alongside seminal works by other pioneers of electronic music; from Daphne Oram to Edgard Var?se. Considered in this context, Meek's masterpiece seems less an oddball pop novelty than a daring and visionary electronic sound exploration. The legendary British pop producer came to prominence during the repressed monochrome days before the Beatles arrived to change everything; an era of fascination with all things Space Age and nuclear; a mood Meek encapsulated with his biggest hit, Telstar by the Tornados; a million selling chart-topper on both sides of the Atlantic and the first British pop single to reach Number One in America. Electronic gear and studio techniques were Meek's obsession. He would dismantle a piece of equipment and modify it in order to ramp up it's capability and thought nothing of building his own compressors, equalisers and echo units. The trademark Meek sound combined an extra-terrestrial keyboard, brittle guitars awash with reverb and a spectral vocal all fiercely compressed. He constantly pushed at the frontiers of his studio's technical potential, using it as an instrument in it's own right and often applying authentic musique concr?te procedures in the perpetual search for new sounds. His knowledge of electronics was as advanced as anyone in Britain at the time. The establishment record labels were intimidated by Joe's inventive genius and moody eccentricity; embarrassed that he could outdo them by producing hit records from a glorified home studio above a leather goods shop on the Holloway Road. Meek's emergence coincided with the advent of stereo sound and investigations by serious composers into the artistic potential of electronic technology. There was great enthusiasm for the new medium in part because the composer was no longer dependent on the interpretation of the performer. Electronic studios were founded across Europe; in Paris, Cologne, Milan and Eindhoven, at radio stations or research laboratories where the necessary technology was already available. Pierre Schaeffer's studio for musique concr?te in Paris was the first, attracting Boulez, Messiaen, Milhaud, Stockhausen and Var?se, but these composers were frustrated at Schaeffer's emphasis on the manipulation of everyday sounds rather than those that were electronically generated. On the other hand, the Studio for Electronic Music of the West German Radio in Cologne, founded by Herbert Eimert & Robert Beyer and eventually dominated by Stockhausen, set up in opposition to Paris and in favour of music generated exclusively by electronic means. At Radiotelevisione Italian in Milan the composers Bruno Maderna and Luciano Berio embraced and went beyond both disciplines. John Cage flew in to visit the facility and create the dizzying blur of sound that is Fontana Mix and win a local TV quiz show on his specialist subject 'poisonous and edible mushrooms'. At the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, Tom Dissevelt and his assistant Kid Baltan (Dick Raaymakers) conducted their interplanetary sound experiments on the fringes of pop, only marginally to the left of Meek. In London, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop assembled a team of gifted composers including co-founder Daphne Oram, Madallena Fagandini and Delia Derbyshire to create sound effects, rhythmic interval signals and music for radio and television productions. Their work was created anonymously at the service of the corporation, nevertheless it came to the attention of the head of Parlophone Records and soon to be Beatles producer, George Martin who collaborated with Fagandini to make a catchy single of Time Beat: "Electronic music - that slightly disturbing sound of our times which is produced amid a complex of tape recorders and electric wiring - is about to attack the hit parades. " exclaimed one newspaper. Between 1964 and 1967 pop music changed more radically than it had in all the years since it's inception in the 1950s and the long playing record became it's main product. Once the Beatles determined to devote themselves to working in the studio with George Martin on music with increasingly ambitious, conceptual themes, it was inevitable that they would need to be able to draw on a wider and more eclectic range of materials. Paul McCartney chose to engage with electronic art music of Berio and Stockhausen, attending lectures and performances of their work in London. Their influence opened up a new world of sonic possibilities for the Beatles that can be heard in the backward tape echo, vocal manipulations, loops and sound collages of Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and I Am the Walrus, culminating in Revolution 9 which has been described as "the world's most widely distributed avant-garde artefact. "
1. I Hear a New World 2. Orbit Around the Moon 3. Entry of the Globbots 4. The Bublight 5. March of the Dribcots 6. Love Dance of the Saroos 7. Glob Waterfall 8. Magnetic Field 9. Valley of the Saroos 10. Dribcots Space Boat 11. Disc Dance of the Globbots 12. Valley of No Return 13. I Hear a New World 14. Glob Waterfall 15. Entry of the Globbots 16. Valley of the Saroos 17. Magnetic Field 18. Orbit Around the Moon 19. The Bublight 20. March of the Dribcots 21. Love Dance of the Saroos 22. Dribcots Space Boat 23. Disc Dance of the Globbots 24. Valley of No Return 25. Amphitryon 38 - Daphne Oram 26. The Artist Speaks - Phil Young 27. Science and Industry - Phil Young and Maddalena Fagandini 28. Interval Signal - Maddalena Fagandini 29. Time Beat - Maddalena Fagandini 30. Ideal Home Exhibition - Maddalena Fagandini 31. The Chem Lab Mystery - Maddalena Fagandini 32. Time on Our Hands (Titles and City Music) - Delia Derbyshire 33. Arabic Science and History - Delia Derbyshire 34. Time Beat - Ray Cathode (Maddalena Fagandini - George Martin) 35. Waltz in Orbit - Ray Cathode (Maddalena Fagandini - George Martin) 36. Dripsody (An Etude for Variable Speed Recorder) - Hugh Le Caine 37. Syncopation (Orbit Aurora) - Tom Dissevelt 38. Whirling (Sonic Re-Entry) - Tom Dissevelt 39. Drifting (Moon Maid) - Tom Dissevelt 40. Fantasy in Space - Otto Luening 41. Piece for Tape Recorder - Vladimir Ussachevsky 42. ?tude 1 Sur Un Son 43. ?tude 2 Sur Un Accord de Sept Sons 44. Timbres Dur?es - Olivier Messiaen 45. Sound in Unlimited Space - Herbert Eimert ; Robert Beyer 46. Studie NR.1 - Karlheinz Stockhausen 47. La Rivi?re Endormie - Darius Milhaud 48. Interpolation 1 from D?serts - Edgard Var?se 49. Spirale - Pierre Henry 50. ?tude Aux Sons Anim?s - Pierre Schaeffer 51. Poeme Electronique - Edgard Var?se 52. Scambi - Henri Pousseuri 53. Musica Su Due Dimensioni "Dimensioni No. 1" (Version for Flute and Tape) - Bruno Maderna 54. Fontana Mix - John Cage 55. Artikulation for Tape - Gy÷rgy Ligeti 56. Part One 57. Part Two 58. Part Three 59. Orient Occident la Prisonni?re - Iannis Xenakis 60. Momenti, for Magnetic Tape - Luciano Berio 61. Visages (Excerpt) - Luciano Berio 62. The Innocents - Savage Noises (Excerpt) - Daphne Oram 63. Rhythmic Variation 1 from Electronic Sound Patterns - Daphne Oram
