An Electric Storm

by

White Noise

Edit

This is a legendary album in the eyes of the small group of people that have heard it. It was the brainchild of David Voorhaus, a classically trained bassist who dabbled in electronics. He made his own synthesizers (at that time they didn't have keyboards attached), and along with a couple of part-time members whose full time jobs were with the BBC Radiophonics Workshop they created this from laboriosly splicing pieces of tape together.

It's a very unique album that often falters at the songwriting, but the main attraction is the soundscape that has been created in exceptional circumstances. Each track took an eternity to create, and in the end they had so little material for an album that they recorded one track ('An Electric Storm in Hell') live with a drummer.

The first side (of the original vinyl version) is an eye opener for sure! It covers a wide variety of moods, subjects and styles. The second side is the real gem here though...

'The Visitation' is a track about a road accident that leads to an out of body experience. It's one of the most fightening tracks that you can ever listen to, coming second only to 'A Black Mass in Hell' which follows it. Someone that I worked with a few years back told a story of when him and his friends used to take large quantities of LSD and one by one sit in his wardrobe with the stereo speakers playing 'The Visitation' and 'A Black Mass in Hell' at full volume. He said that very few of them got to the end before bursting out of the wardrobe screaming...

This really is a must for anyone that is interested in the roots of electronica though.

I remember this obviously as a vinyl recording from the times when myself and friends used to go to each others houses to listen to this and other "trippy" music. I recall that we were all pretty freaked out by this although the usual chemically induced paranoia was mostly to blame. That being said, it was undoubtedly one of the most influential records that we listened to as it had the effect of breaking down the barriers (for us) of what we all accepted as the musical "norm". Like it or dislike it, we found that it opened up numerous discussions as to what we each got from it rather than just being "cool" or not so "cool". Though definitely now a period piece and not perhaps musically relevant given that even mainstream euphoria/trance bands regularly produce similarly weird music it still remains an evocative reminder of its time. Always remember to compare this type of music with that which was in the broader market at the time to realise just how very different it was. I'm glad to be able to get my paws on it again and, perhaps revisit a little piece of my history!