Badings, Raaijmakers & Dissevelt — Popular Electronics

Dutch label Basta has a reputation of releasing wonderfully restored historic recordings of strange music that applied new technologies of the fifties and sixties. The electronic recordings by Raymond Scott, Samuel Hoffman’s theremin box, André Popp’s Delirium in Hi-Fi, but also a recent release of Moog- and tapesplice-pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey.

Perrey even writes on page one of the first of seven booklets that hearing a 7” with Whirling and Song Of The Second Moon at the age of 28 made him decide to pursue a career in electronic music. These pieces are included in this box-set that features the works of Henk Badings, Tom Dissevelt and Dick Raaijmakers (a.k.a. Kid Baltan) recorded in the Philips laboratories between 1956 and 1963. Four discs, mostly mono, as stereo wasn’t yet invented. The laboraties were at the forefront of electronic music and led to have Edgard Varèse spending some time in Eindhoven to record his Poème Électronique.

The first disc features ballet music commisioned by the Dutch National Ballet (Kaïn And Abel) and the Hanover Opera Ballet (Evolutionen), created by Henk Badings. It’s relatively abstract electronic music. Catchier than most of their ‘art music’ contemporaries like Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and Pierre Henry. Kid Baltan’s songs are poppier by covering music from the famous Bridge Over The River Kwai movie and including a ‘tearjerker’ Night Train Blues that originally didn’t make it as Raaijmakers found it too sentimental. Instruments of that time were generally acoustic instruments recorded on tape, spliced and sped up or slowed down. Early electronic instruments were early keyboards like the Ondes Martenot but also oscillators were used. Also tape-echoes were used abundantly and the ‘mixdown’ was realised by playing the several ‘channels’ simultaneously on a couple of synchronised taperecorders. Disc 1 concludes with Intersection, a wonderful combination a real jazz-orchestra augmented by electronic sounds. An amazing piece!

Disc 2 focuses on three things. First is concert music: two pieces by Dick Raaijmakers. Much music was created for films and documentaries and the other music, film music and soundscenery, are also found on this disc, mostly by Raaijmakers. Given the experimental nature of this music, the soundworlds we're taken into are remarkably entertaining and exciting. Fascinating and dripping with enthusiasm for the new techniques but maintaining a musical angle that keeps it all very listenable.

The otherworldly nature of the sounds created in the period regarded as the ‘Space Age’ makes many titles and concepts reflect the optimistic and exploratory nature of those times. Tom Dissevelt’s integrally included Fantasy In Orbit on disc 3 is a perfect example of that. It makes a nice companion disc for Joe Meek’s I Hear A New World.

The fourth disc has a couple of alternate versions, like the early recordings for Intersection and Fantasy In Orbit. Also a bunch of cues and tunes for tv-commercials are included and the disc concludes with examples on how the music was structured/created. Taken apart in bits and pieces it’s the ‘educational’ part of the set. Very interesting as the sounds heard on all these discs often make you wonder how it all was created. This disc is a bit less musical and listenable and mainly serves an informational purpose.

For that educational purpose there are also seven booklets full of background info on the laboratories, the instruments, the composers and technical notes by sound restorer Kees Tazelaar. Also there are lots of great pictures of people, the lab, adverts and recordsleeves. Having seen a documentary that only touched briefly on this particular aspect of the artist Dick Raaijmakers (it focused on his debunking some of Pierre Boulez’ theories in the field of electro-acoustic music) it would be very interesting to see some more of working in those labs. Maybe there’s too little material, but a DVD could be a great addition to this set. Anyway, never a dull moment in once again a wonderful release from Basta. Of course there will be people trying to 'sell' this by saying that these are predecessors to techno and house, but be aware that there's no monotonic beats on these discs. If you're into stuff like Autechre or even Fennesz you might find some interesting history here.

I believe a followup to Raymond Scott’s Manhattan Research, Inc. 2CD-set is planned next for Basta.