1969 stereo UK LP with textured pink labels with white “i” logo.
Per Wikipedia, White Noise is an experimental electronic music band formed in London, England in 1968 by American-born David Vorhaus, a classical bass player with a background in both physics and electronic engineering. He was initially joined by BBC Radiophonic Workshop composers Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, both ex of electronic music project Unit Delta Plus.”
An Electric Storm was released on Island Records and was created using a variety of tape manipulation techniques (think LAFMS or the Tape-Beatles or Gregg Kowalsky or pretty much anyone who manipulates tape on records). The first track actually includes sped-up tape of Vorhaus playing the double bass which creates sounds like a violin and cello. It also featured the first British synthesizer, the EMS Synthi VCS3. Not quite as old-school synth-y as the Forbidden Planet soundtrack, but still impressive for 1968.
Even cooler, the first two songs were originally just intended to be two sides of a single, but Chris Blackwell of Island convinced the band to write material for an entire album. They spent a year recording the next four tracks in a flat in Camden Town, and the final track was put together in a day when the label demanded the album be completed. A year for four tracks, a day for the last track. Awesome.
Although only 35-minutes in length it remains a remarkably effective and influential recording. Plenty of musicians have name-checked An Electric Storm in the electronic, rock and noise communities. Soon you will too. If you haven’t already heard it.
White Noise
An Electric Storm
(Island, 1969)
01. Love Without Sound
02. My Game Of Loving
03. Here Comes The Fleas
04. Firebird
05. Your Hidden Dreams
06. The Visitation
07. Black Mass: An Electronic Storm In Hell
