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Monday, January 29, 2018

The Alchemists of Sound (2003)


This BBC documentary is a good introduction to the people responsible for creating some of the most memorable television and radio music in British popular culture.

The BBC's Radiophonic Workshop was set up in 1958, born out of a desire to create 'new kinds of sounds'. This documentary looks at this creative group from its inception, through its golden age when it was supplying music and effects for cult classics like Doctor Who, Blake's Seven and Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and charts its fading away in 1995 when, due to budget cuts, it was no longer able to survive.

There are interviews with composers from the Workshop, as well as musicians and writers who have been inspired by the output. Great archive footage of the Workshop and its machinery is accompanied by excerpts of the, now cult, TV programmes that featured these sounds.

More information:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963155/

Directed by Roger Pomphrey. Narrated by Oliver Postgate. Interviews/appearances by Roger Limb, Mark Ayres, Brian Hodgson, Desmond Briscoe, Maddalena Fagandini, Dick Mills, Adrian Utley, David Cain, Delia Derbyshire, Malcolm Clarke, Peter Kember, John Baker, Milton Babbitt, Huw Wheldon, Robert Popper, Peter Serafinowicz, Wendy Carlos, Peter Howell, Paddy Kingsland and Elizabeth Parker.

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