Delia

I've been a bit preoccupied with the rather tragic life of one of my icons, Delia Derbyshire. Last night we listened to the play BBC Radio did about her life a few years ago, Blue Veils and Golden Sands, which was very good (more so this time round perhaps for recently seeing an interview with her in the early 90s on The Beginning DVD set) but emphasised how she died just as things were beginning to turn round for her after more than a few years in an alcoholic wilderness.

She really was working in a time and an industry that didn't appreciate her and the work she was doing. I can't imagine how upsetting and frustrating that must have been for her, especially when her work is regarded as some of the most pioneering work in the field of electronic music. Things were just turning round as she died a few years back. Not all of her stuff is brilliant, but there are enough pieces around that show what a unique talent she had. Just listen to Blue Veils and Golden Sands with it's evocative sounds of the desert or the haunting Delian Mode or Zweih, Zweih-Oh-Oh-Oh!

Of course, her most famous piece will always the first and quite possibly definitive arrangement of the Doctor Who theme, a piece that stands up today as one of the most atmospheric theme tunes ever recorded and more so when you realise that it's all made out of huge tape loops that circled the Radiophonic Workshop just to get the right sounds and that there wasn't a real instrument on there at all. In 1963 that was one hell of an achievement, and it was that that set me off all those years ago into a fan of all things Radiophonic.