Plural Machine

I'l be giving a talk entitled From Electronic Terror to Electronic Terrorism: Dr. Who Soundtracks and Industrial Music as Sonic Dystopianism . This is a sequel to the Doctor Who and The Death Factory talk from last year and will include new audiovisual examples and other material. You can view the programme of the conference here . There are papers on preserving electronic music, classic equipment, the work of Daphne Oram and more. The event will conclude with a concert marking the 80th birthday of EMS pioneer Peter Zinovieff. Doctor Who and The Death Factory is an evolving project and I've created a youtube playlist to demonstrate its arguments. More news on this work will follow...

Montage by Vera Bremerton.  Next Friday I'll give an experimental presentation at Noise=Noise on the strange parallels between the sonic and conceptual dystopianism of Doctor Who and first generation British industrial music. Dr. Who exposed mass audiences (often very young) to a combination of experimental electronic sound and dystopian themes, a combination that could also summarise industrial music. Dr. Who frequently presented post-apocalyptic scenarios of mutation, mind control and para-militarised societies and, in the process, at least implicitly criticised actual political and technological developments of the time, particularly those associated with the Cold War arms race. Due to budgetary constraints these visionary scenarios were often realised in a rudimentary ad hoc fashion; an approach that also applies to industrial. The early industrial groups highlighted the most serious social and political themes using very primitive electronic equipment, creating a kind of...