'I Feel The Earth Move...'

Doctor Who: Musical Interlude #2

Now then, now then. Settle down, guys and gals. In this brief sojourn into the world of Doctor Who music there is, without a doubt, in my mind,  no need to look any further than the first principles of sound design and music as laid down by those unsung genii Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson.

Both Delia and Brian represent the pinnacle of the Radiophonic Workshop's achievements, not just because of their work on Doctor Who but also from the collaborations that grew out of it, particularly their work in the late 1960s with David Vorhaus and Don Harper on the White Noise and Electrosonic albums, respectively. They both clearly understood how sounds worked subliminally in conjunction with vision and were empathetic to certain sounds that created specific psychological effects in the viewer. Theirs is sound and music that has a function and a purpose not only as incidental music but it is also about feeding into mental states such as anxiety and suspense. Sustained notes and rhythms created through unorthodox methods of production ensure that the earliest use of music and sound on Doctor Who earmark it as one of the most unusual sounding television programmes ever made in the 1960s and 1970s.

They were highly experimental composers, with no access to synthesisers, using a very creative Heath Robinson approach to composition and scoring with physical manipulation of tape loops, cut up recordings and oscillators as well as traditional instrumentation. Their organic methodology was so successful that the differences between their sound effects and their incidental music become blurred and indistinct. On many occasions, and in Doctor Who particularly, it is hard to tell where the music begins and the sound effects end and they are often interchangeable.  The, by now, familiar creation of the TARDIS' dematerialisation sound using a key and piano string is, of course, part and parcel of the origins of the programme but, musically, it was also conventionally scored even if its final treatment and manipulation is far from the orthodox way in which music is put together.

...to organically bring the truly experimental and the popular together and present it in the context of family viewing at Saturday tea times

In 1963, these applications were so technically advanced for their time that Delia was able to construct the legendary Doctor Who theme through filtered oscillation, cutting, speeding up, and assemblage note- by-note, in a two week period. Again, no synthesisers were used. The heightened, unearthly sound of Doctor Who was born. Delia was able to take the forms of musique concrète, originally developed by by Pierre Schaeffer, with the use of microphones and magnetic tape recorders, and organically bring the truly experimental and the popular together and present it in the context of family viewing at Saturday tea times. Schaeffer certainly began the playful exploration of mixing traditional instruments with found sounds and his work and, later the work of Delia and Brian, could be said to be a precursor to today's ubiquitous use of samplers.

Before I cite my own personal favourite Doctor Who story as a demonstration of the effectiveness of Delia and Brian's work, let's have a look at the Standard Music Library album ESL 104. Standard Music Library was established in 1969 as suppliers of specialist production music for film, television, radio and commercials. The styles range from orchestral, jazz, dance and a variety of world music, to avant-garde composers such as Brian Eno. ESL 104 was one of their first releases, and the original record was used to provide incidental music to the 1970 Doctor Who story, Inferno. Delia and Brian recorded the majority of the tracks on ESL 104 under their Nikki St George and Li De La Russe composing hats, with David Vorhaus, an avant garde American composer who formed Camden Town's Kaleidophon studio with Derbyshire and Hodgson, composing the remaining tracks. Delia and Brian later went on to produce Electrosonic with Don Harper and An Electric Storm, as White Noise, with Vorhaus in the late 1960s and early 1970s. All three albums are significant as they all feature very familiar sounds, effects and music to Doctor Who fans and they are also amongst some of the most pioneering British electronic music ever made and had a profound influence on many musicians over the following decades.

...effectively conjure up those odd moments in the programme when armchairs would swallow people or troll dolls would go on the rampage   

Electrosonic is a series of very short mood pieces from Delia, Brian and Harper composed for the KPM library and probably used in countless television programmes of the era. 'Frontier Of Knowledge', the fourth track, sounds like it could fit in with Spearhead From Space or Terror Of The Autons and this and a later track 'Nightwalker' effectively conjure up those odd moments in the programme when armchairs would swallow people or troll dolls would go on the rampage. 'Depression' is just like the theme for the Master but extended and given even more sinister undertones. This album also recalls the pioneering work on the radio adaptations of War Of The Worlds or the special sound for plays such as The Stone Tape.

The 1969 album from White Noise, An Electric Storm, was brought to life by David Vorhaus and is surely one of the great British sound experiments of all time. An avant-garde whirlwind of sounds, effects, songs and oscillators, it's as mad as a box of frogs. 'Here Come The Fleas' is bouncy electronics, cartoon sound effects and skiffle and a bit of avant-garde poetry. The track's kazoo sounding electronic break is shattered by more dogs, bits of shouting and sirens. It's the equivalent of letting Spike Milligan loose in a room full of synthesisers and sampling machines. 'Firebird' moves into English pastoral psychedelia with treated drums, what sounds like a harpsichord and some distant female crooning laced with electronic stabs straight out of Forbidden Planet.

The final half of the album moves into darker territory with what sounds like the Weed creatures from Fury From The Deep dueting with Juliet Greco. The 11 minute plus of 'The Visitations' is all Doctor Who sound effects, free form sound collages, synthetic screeching and swirling, pulsing heart beats which sounds like Quatermass And The Pit meets Brian Eno via The Kinks. The finale, 'The Black Mass' is off the wall, vari-speed incantations, organs and frenetic percussion, electronic buzzes and pulses and screams. There's even a sound effect in there that I recognise from Timeslip and The Tomorrow People. Which brings us conveniently back to ESL 104.

...it is a perfect mesh of strong performances, story and direction but above all else it is the sound of Doctor Who in its most elevated state

ESL 104 probably contains some of the most influential and fondly remembered compositions from Delia and Brian. Recorded in the late 1960s, many of the compositions on this album are the quintessential sound of Inferno. Inferno is one of the most intense stories produced for the series and remains highly regarded by fans. For me, it is a perfect mesh of strong performances, story and direction but above all else it is the sound of Doctor Who in its most elevated state. Director Douglas Camfield eschewed the normal route of asking Dudley Simpson to compose the incidental music and instead selected a number of stock library tracks. The majority of the tracks originate from ESL 104 and two other tracks, the legendary 'Delian Mode' and 'Blue Veils And Golden Sands' originated from the BBC Radiophonic Music album that had been released in 1968. 'Blue Veils' was originally composed for a World About Us documentary about the Tuareg tribes of the Sahara. This Delia composition was composed and constructed using filtered electronic oscillators to give the "shimmering heat haze" atmosphere to accompany the footage. It also uses manipulations of Delia's voice and the ringing of a now infamous green lamp shade.  It seems quite fitting that Camfield should use such an atmospheric piece to underscore the fiery destruction of the world in Inferno and her 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' emphasises Stahlman's complete obsession and madness. Her 'Lure Of the Space Goddess', a kind of swirling electronic woodwind effect, also surfaces from ESL 104 to provide further mood and an uneasy underscore to the environs of Project inferno.

Brian Hodgson also makes significant contributions, beyond his brilliant mixing and montaging, with 'Souls In Space' , all ethereal wind noises, originally composed for The Wheel in Space, but dropped in tone and highlighting the freakish nature of the Primords. Other Hodgson library tracks used on Inferno include 'Attack of the Alien Minds', a shrill, vibrating, tropical bird like whistling, 'Homeric Theme', a pulsing, deep, throbbing vibration. But Hodgson's major contribution to Inferno has to be 'Battle Theme' which gradually intensifies over the course of the story with its constant looping of crashing metallic noise signifying an unseen riot of industrial chaos and disaster just beyond the doors of Project Inferno. Combined with the histrionic performances of the actors in the story, it really does provide a palpably disturbing atmosphere. David Vorhaus contributes 'Build Up To' which is a low key, warbling and dithering sound that again provides an appropriate unearthliness to the Doctor slipping sideways into time. Many ESL 104 tracks would later end up also underscoring episodes of Timeslip and The Tomorrow People.

The uncanny sound of Inferno derives from the intensity of these sounds and the way they are looped, repeated and mixed together by Hodgson. I can't recall a quiet moment in Inferno, which in itself is very unusual and radical for a television soundtrack in the 1970s, and it is this amalgamation of relentless 'noise' that gives the story an overwhelming power. When the Doctor yells, 'Listen to that! It's the sound of the planet screaming out its rage!', then I have to counter and say 'No Doctor, that's the definitive sound of Doctor Who.'