Mute have announced that they will release a 50th anniversary retrospective double CD from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which will feature 100 classic, rare and previously unavailable pieces of music and sound effects from various BBC TV and Radio shows from 1958 through to 1997, including work by the likes of John Baker, Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram, Elizabeth Parker, Desmond Briscoe, Paddy Kingsland, Peter Howell and Malcolm Clarke, amongst others.
The Radiophonic Workshop was, alas, shut down in 1997 during some BBC cut backs. However, while operating it created numerous sounds and themes, most notably those of 'Dr Who'. Using reel-to-reel tape machines, early heroines of the unit such as Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire recorded everyday or strange sounds and then manipulated these by speeding up, slowing down or cutting the tape with razor blades and piecing it back together. The sound of the Tardis in Dr Who, for example, was a sound engineer's front door key scraped across the bass strings on a broken piano.
'BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective' is released by Mute on 3 Nov.