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Delia Derbyshire Day celebrates a pioneer of electronic musicon November 23, 2020 at 12:00 pm

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Delia Derbyshire in the 1960s - IMAGES FROM WIKIDELIA.NET

It can be tricky to pick a subject for an open-ended column like the Listener, but when I realized today was Delia Derbyshire Day, my choice was obvious. In the early 1960s, this UK electronic composer and performer helped change the world of sound as we know it.

Born in Coventry in 1937, Delia Derbyshire fell in love with sound against the backdrop of the blitz–she later described the air-raid-warning and “all clear” sirens she heard as a child as her first experience with “electronic music.” After studying mathematics and music on scholarship at Cambridge, she was turned down for a job at Decca Records due to a ban on hiring women to work in the label’s recording studio.

After bombarding the BBC with applications for more than a year (while teaching, traveling with a theater troupe, and working for a music publisher, among other jobs), Derbyshire became a program operations assistant in late 1960. The following year the BBC promoted her to studio manager, and in 1962 she made her most momentous move, requesting a transfer to the Radiophonic Workshop.

Cofounded in 1958 by fellow electronic-music visionary Daphne Oram, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was a sound-effects lab that quickly evolved into an important incubator for electronic music and technology, despite its dilapidated equipment and cramped conditions. Most BBC staffers had to be compelled to join the workshop, and they tended to stay just a few months, but Derbyshire spent the next 11 years there. Because this was before the widespread adoption of synthesizers and computers, her process was a painstaking one: working mainly with reel-to-reel tape, she recorded, cut up, and transformed an inventive variety of electronic and acoustic sounds.

Derbyshire is most associated with her iconic 1963 version of Ron Grainer’s theme for Doctor Who, but that was the only time in her career that she arranged someone else’s composition. Her body of work includes original pieces for more than 200 radio and television programs, as well as music for stage productions.

In 1966 Derbyshire helped launch Unit Delta Plus, a group intended to promote the creation of electronic music and encourage its use in film, TV, and advertising. In 1968 she founded the studio Kaleidophon with David Vorhaus and Brian Hodgson, and the following year they released the album An Electric Storm under the name the White Noise (which Vorhaus has kept alive to this day). She largely retired from making music in 1975.

It took decades for Derbyshire to be recognized for her contributions, in large part because the BBC’s standard practice was to credit the Radiophonic Workshop for compositions by its staff–this not only denied her royalties but also ensured she’d remain obscure during her most productive years. Derbyshire passed away in 2001, leaving behind nearly 300 reel-to-reel tapes (most of which have since been digitized) and a thousand papers in her attic.

Delia Derbyshire Day 2020 is Monday, November 23, and marks the 57th anniversary of the first TV broadcast of her famous Doctor Who theme. Beyond listening to her music, one of the best ways to celebrate her legacy is to experiment with sound on your own–and you don’t need experience to have fun mixing and matching loops and effects in the Delia Derbyshire Day organization’s online Deliaphonica game. v

The Listener is a weekly sampling of music Reader staffers love. Absolutely anything goes, and you can reach us at [email protected].

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Composer William Basinski combs four decades of his personal archives to build something new on Lamentationson November 23, 2020 at 2:00 pm

William Basinski has thrown himself headlong into the kind of “productive quarantine” that seems like a myth to most of us, and the spoils are abundant. Since March, when states across the U.S. began issuing stay-at-home orders, he has unveiled a collaboration with sound artist Richard Chartier and a new project called Sparkle Division. The New York-based composer and musician is best known for the four-volume audio experiment The Disintegration Loops, which he created in summer 2001 by recording the deterioration of tape loops he’d made in the early 80s. Dedicated to the victims of the 9/11 attacks (he finished the work the day the towers fell) and released in four installments across 2002 and ’03, The Disintegration Loops made such an impact that in 2012 it was inducted into the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Since then, Basinski has continued his deep explorations of the realms of sound, and this month the concept-driven composer released Lamentations, which draws from more than four decades’ worth of tape loops and sound sketches plucked from his archives. The passage of time isn’t just a palpable part of this music–it’s an integral collaborator in its creation. “Tear Vial” thrums in an aqueous haze through nearly five minutes of slowly oscillating piano chords, and “O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow” (a tribute to performance artist Marina Abramovic) dissolves Svetlana Spajic’s interpretation of Serbian folk song “Ko Pokida Sa Grla Djerdane” to make a surreal hymn. Lamentations isn’t all serious and somber, though–the chopped-up singing that stumbles and restarts throughout “Please, This Shit Has Got to Stop” makes it sound almost whimsical. While many of Basinski’s contemporaries aim to create music that’s crystalline and timeless, he documents decay–a fizzling loop, an oxidized tape, even the dwindling nature of life. Lamentations shares its name with a book from the Old Testament, readings from which are used to mourn the ravaging of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, but the music on the album doesn’t care to answer the question of whether it’s a memorial or a reprieve from this stressful time. For Basinski, it’s possibility–not hope–that springs eternal. v

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Composer William Basinski combs four decades of his personal archives to build something new on Lamentationson November 23, 2020 at 2:00 pm Read More »

Jesu seduces you with melodic bleaknesson November 23, 2020 at 6:00 pm

UK guitarist and composer Justin Broadrick is best known as a founding member of the industrial metal assault that is Godflesh. But capturing purely annihilatory noise in that pounding maelstrom is not his only musical interest. He formed Jesu in 2003 to focus on postpunk, goth, and the bleaker, lonelier shores of shoegaze, and characteristically, his latest album under that name, Terminus (Avalanche), is an exercise in nonmetal darkness that provides chiming soundscapes for a gray and empty existence. Broadrick conceived Jesu partially as an avenue to explore his own take on pop songwriting, and there are a lot of hooks drifting around in the growling murk of these songs. “When I Was Small” has a bottom-scraping stoner-sludge heaviness that grounds Broadrick’s strained, echo-laden, everydude vocals as he delivers lyrics (“I tried to see both sides / But I failed / I failed to be the one”) that feel like a good summation of the album’s thematic obsessions with mope and trudge and sadness. “Disintegrating Wings” is positively pretty, with crystal tones fluttering about until they come apart against huge distorted guitar chords. Jesu isn’t all about pounding you into paste (so in that sense it’s gentler than Godflesh), but the sweeter voice of Terminus is nonetheless intent on luring you into its own nightmarish abyss. v

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Judson Claiborne confront humanity’s downfall with beautiful songs on When a Man Loves an Omenon November 24, 2020 at 2:00 pm

When humanity’s ship goes down due to a global pandemic, vulture capitalism, and corrupt politics, the band picking and singing the final notes will be Chicago’s Judson Claiborne. So this month–when we’re grappling with the messy aftermath of an election while watching COVID-19 cases skyrocket before our eyes–feels like the perfect time for Christopher Salveter, the group’s auteur, to release this collection of finely wrought songs that confront apocalyptic anxiety with beautiful melodies that make sticking around feel like a better option. When a Man Loves an Omen, Salveter’s first release in six years, is a lovely baroque folk EP filled with light: the deep bends of Julian Rogai’s double bass, the ever-present banjo of Josh Lantzy, and the pulsing percussion of Jamie Topper create a lush and comforting bed that’s difficult to leave.

Salveter is also a subversive songwriter, though, and works pretty melodies into songs with harrowing themes: the waltzing “Twenty Dollar Quartet” features the lost voices and obsessions of Sun Records royalty such as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, while “Conditionals” makes the horrors of climate change personal (“If all of the signs are gonna be ignored,” Salveter sings, “Then who of our kind is gonna mind the store”). With its echoing guitars, “I Want My Undeveloped Prefrontal Cortex Back” yearns for more primitive times. Like Califone and Andrew Bird, Salveter is ultimately a minimalist folkie, in full command of his music’s enchanting darkness and the beauty that can be found within such sparse instrumentation. When a Man Loves an Omen largely serves as a showcase for the harmony singing of Salveter and his bandmates, but the piano instrumental “Alive in Time” is nonetheless a standout, its melody rolling over whispers of electronics. The elegant fingerpicking of “The Trimmergrant” creates an atmosphere of mystery regarding the disappearance of migrant workers hired to trim marijuana at night in northern California: “No marijuana grows unprotected,” Salveter sings. The song could easily serve as the opening theme to the next installment of True Detective, but it’s also a haunting world of its own making. v

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Judson Claiborne confront humanity’s downfall with beautiful songs on When a Man Loves an Omenon November 24, 2020 at 2:00 pm Read More »

Crusty metal six-piece Ilsa call out cruelty and corruption through the story of an 80s murdereron November 24, 2020 at 6:00 pm

Even if you buy into the idea that musicians should stay out of politics, how do you overlook the politics baked into everything around you? Take the COVID-19 pandemic: What’s more destructive, the virus or the leaders who don’t even try to get it under control? Preyer, the new album from D.C. six-piece Ilsa, was born in lockdown, and they use it to take the piss out of the corruption, inhumanity, and lust for power that helped drive society to this particular brink. With a caustic blend of death metal, doom, sludge, and crust punk, Ilsa reframe the story of Sean Sellers, the only person the U.S. has put to death for crimes committed under age 17 since reinstating the death penalty in 1976, as an indictment of what they see as a toxic Christian nationalist state; at his trial in 1986, he claimed he’d been an active satanist and possessed by a demon when he shot and killed his mother and stepfather (though by then he’d converted to Christianity in jail). Ilsa set the scene with opener “Epigraph,” which accompanies slowly building doom metal with testimony from Sellers about the night in 1985 when he murdered a convenience store clerk. Sellers appealed for clemency, citing his conversion and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, but he was executed in 1999. Sellers’s crimes were unquestionably heinous, but it’s essential to question a system that justifies applying the death penalty to a teenager who may have had a severe mental health disorder. We have to look at those who benefit from such a system and why–elected officials, for example, who campaign on religious principles, only to vote against funding for public health and social services and accept donations from for-profit prisons. (As vocalist Orian sings on the anti-Christofascist groover “Shibboleth”: “Faith’s distortion is noxious / Contrary to liberty.”) In that sense, Ilsa speak heavy truths to power just as successfully as they lay down colossally heavy riffs. v

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Crusty metal six-piece Ilsa call out cruelty and corruption through the story of an 80s murdereron November 24, 2020 at 6:00 pm Read More »

Congratulationson November 25, 2020 at 3:05 am

Free Your Mind

Congratulations

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Perfect gifts for the Chicago Bears fanon November 25, 2020 at 12:56 am

ChicagoNow Staff Blog

Perfect gifts for the Chicago Bears fan

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Perfect gifts for the Chicago Bears fanon November 25, 2020 at 12:56 am Read More »

Teen fires 19 shots at cops while hunting rivals on South Side: prosecutorson November 24, 2020 at 9:26 pm

A convicted felon who just started serving probation on a weapons charge was hunting for rivals in a South Side park when he fired 19 shots at Chicago police officers over the weekend, Cook County prosecutors said Tuesday.

None of the officers were injured and, 22-year-old Kamari Pleasant — one of three alleged gunmen — was apprehended minutes later Saturday hiding under a car and in a pile of leaves.

A 17-year-old boy was also arrested that day after he was found lying near a basement stairwell next to a .40-caliber Smith and Wesson, prosecutors said.

Despite gunshots “that sounded like fully-automatic gunfire,” the three officers did not fire back at the shooters, prosecutors told Judge John F. Lyke Jr.

“What’s most amazing, and shows tremendous training and professionalism in my humble opinion, no officer fired a single shot,” Lyke said before ordering Pleasant held without bail on attempted murder charges.

The teenager also has been charged as a juvenile.

Twenty-five shell cases recovered in Fernwood Park were linked to guns found by Pleasant and the teenager, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said.

Six 9mm casings found in the park are believed to be from the third, uncharged shooter who got away, Murphy said.

Kamari Pleasant
Kamari Pleasant
Chicago police

Before the shooting, someone called police to report that three people with guns were exiting a car to enter the park “to do a shooting,” Murphy said.

When the three tactical officers responded in the 10400 block of South Union after 10 p.m., they saw Pleasant and the two others exiting the park toward the car, Murphy said. Pleasant and his cohorts allegedly ran back into the park after noticing the officers and their flashing lights. As the officers pursued them, Pleasant and the other gunmen fired at the officers, Murphy said.

One officer took cover, while another officer left the squad car and took cover behind a parked vehicle, Murphy said. The third officer, anticipating the shooters would run toward Wallace Street, got in the driver’s seat and picked up the two other officers, Murphy said. The officers, with the help of a citizen, drove around the fenced-in park and located the car they initially tried to stop, arresting the driver, who allegedly told police he dropped off the defendants to hunt rivals in the park.

Other officers searching the neighborhood found Pleasant in a driveway east of the park, Murphy said. A .40-caliber Glock, converted to a fully-automatic weapon with an extended clip, was recovered nearby, Murphy said. Pleasant later tested positive for gun residue, Murphy said.

The 19 shell casings found at the park matched the gun, and two of the officers identified Pleasant as the shooter, Murphy said.

At the time of the shooting, Pleasant was 19 days into a two-year probation he was sentenced to after pleading guilty to a gun charge Nov. 2.

Pleasant’s defense attorney argued that there was no evidence that tied him to the case, and that the father of two was merely fleeing gunshots in the park like anyone else would.

Lyke wasn’t convinced.

“According to the state, this defendant turns and starts firing. The officer takes cover and can feel bullets whizzing past him,” Lyke said. “At that point, they didn’t do what most human beings would do, and get the heck out of there. They continue to pursue. These are the real heroes.”

Pleasant, who lives in Dolton with his aunt, is expected back in court Dec. 14.

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6 Independent Liquor Stores in Chicagoon November 23, 2020 at 3:59 pm

What keeps you warm and cozy in the winter months? Maybe you have a pile of blankets or a boo you can cuddle; some of us like to keep an internal warmth going with the help of our favorite liquor store around the corner. If you’re feeling a little chilled lately and want to support local small businesses in Chicago, check out these lovely purveyors of extra holiday spirit with the six best independent liquor stores in Chicago.

5947 N Broadway, Chicago IL 60660

Situated in the Edgewater area, Independent Spirits is a store that appeals to the at-home beverage enthusiast— from wine to vodka, to vermouth, and even mead, you can find just about anything you need to try that recipe you’ve been eyeballing in your home bartender’s recipe book.

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1214 E 53rd St, Chicago IL 60615

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Serving the South Side since the ‘60s, Kimbark has anything and everything in the world of wine, beer, and liquor. They’re also open every day of the week, and can even deliver your beverages to you before 8 PM.

Bottles & Cans

4109 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL 60618

This runner-up for Chicago Reader’s 2019 Best Liquor Store is based in North Center, and in addition to selling great wines, beers, and spirits, the store is also currently running a raffle to benefit Support Staff.

Liquorama

4430 S Kedzie Ave, Chicago IL 60632

Brighton Park’s Liquorama offers a comprehensive selection of wine and spirits, but their nickname is “The Tequila Oasis,” and for good reason— this store carries more than 300 types of tequila.

Liquor Stores Chicago
Photo Credit: China Place Liquor City on Yelp

China Place Liquor City

2105 S China Pl, Chicago IL 60616

If you’re in Chinatown and looking for wine, beer, and spirits, this is the place to go: in addition to a wide selection of Chinese, domestic, and other exported beers, you can also find a variety of sake and scotch.

Rite Liquors

1649 W Division St, Chicago IL 60622

This casual, no-frills spot in Ukrainian Village is described by many as “a hole-in-the-wall,” and is both a bar and a liquor store. When it’s safe again to do so, it’ll be the perfect place to stop earlier on a Friday night, grab a drink, and then continue on to the party you’re headed to with some beverages to share. Until then, it’s just a really solid liquor store.

Featured Image Credit: out5ourcestores on Pixabay

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