Artist and Musician Graham Dunning present a musical exploration of mechanical music. With the invention of recorded music, machines which played the instruments themselves - such as fairground organs, player pianos, music boxes and barrel organs - went quickly out of fashion. Through the 20th century as music had the opportunity to become avant garde, the music machines were left behind. Where gramophones, tape recorders and turntables had an important role to play in the development of experimental music, there are fewer examples from the world of the fairground organ. This mix brings together various flavours of unusual mechanical music from the last 100 or so years up to today. 

Incantation Wendy

The Noise of the Machine Itself: Mechanical music and the avant garde

Frances Scott and Chu-Li Shewring Incantation, Wendy (2018) "Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder." [1] Incantation, Wendy is a recorded broadcast for radio by Frances Scott and Chu-Li Shewring. The piece looks to the work of pioneering composer and musician Wendy Carlos. Carlos famously arranged the distinctive soundtracks for Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Shining (1981), and spearheaded developments on the Moog Synthesiser and use of the Vocoder. She was one of the first figures to publicly disclose her gender reassignment, and is a pioneer not only for her achievements within electronic music, but seen as a catalyst in discussions around LBGTQ rights and gender politics. Incantation, Wendy includes excerpts and full recordings from Carlos' extraordinary practice, including unused material intended for A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Tracks by Carlos are played across recordings by the artists, that include wild horses, rain, wind and footsteps on gravel, as music from the recording session bleeds into sounds beyond the studio, and scripted readings using a Vocoder invoke the spirit of 'Danny' - A shine knows a shine. [2] The broadcast includes the following excerpts and tracks from Wendy Carlos’s oeuvre: Switched on Bach (1968); The Well Tempered Synthesiser (1969); Sonic Seasonings (1972); Walter Carlos' A Clockwork Orange (1972); Digital Moonscapes (1984); Beauty in the Beast (1986); Wendy Carlos: Secrets of Synthesis (1987); By Request (2003); and Quintessential Archeomusicology - Film Music by Wendy Carlos: Rediscovering Lost Scores Vol.1 (1972 - 2005) Incantation, Wendy was commissioned by TACO!. The piece forms part of Frances Scott’s research residency at TACO! which will culminate in a new, artist film. Incantation, Wendy was recorded at Totland Bay on the Isle of Wight, October 2018. Special thanks to Wendy Carlos and Larry Gutch. [1] Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962) [2] Stephen King, The Shining (1977)

"Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder." [1] Incantation, Wendy is a recorded broadcast for radio by Frances Scott and Chu-Li Shewring. The piece looks to the work of pioneering composer and musician Wendy Carlos. Carlos famously arranged the distinctive soundtracks for Stanley Kubrick

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The Noise of the Machine Itself: Mechanical music and the avant garde

Incantation Wendy