Tags: Arp 2500, Fairlight, Mellotron, Science Museum stores, Wurlitzer Sideman
1 comment
This week, I went to the Science Museum stores which are brimming with musical treasures, including three Mellotrons, a Fairlight CMI, Wurlitzer Sideman and Arp 2500 modular synth. Here are a some technical notes and snaps of these objects, taken rather hastily during my visit. I’ve also plundered YouTube for examples of these machines in action…
Tags: EAW, electric lullaby, Electrical Association for Women, history of electricity, Spacedog
2 comments
An utterly chilling poem that I stumbled on today. It’s from the pages of The Electrical Age, a pioneering gadget magazine, produced from the early 1930s by the Electrical Association for Women:
Hushaby! baby. Mother is near,
Don’t you cry, precious, take an ampere,
Cuddle down, sweet, near the dynamo’s brush,
The current will put you to sleep with a rush….
I’ve been quite the hermit recently as I’ve been locked away in the archives, wading through old lab books, government documents and other curiosities. This is for a book I’m hoping to publish in 2010.
Sarah Angliss is a musician, engineer and writer.
Her band Spacedog mixes theremin, musical saw, vocals and laptops with Sarah's home-spun musical robots.
Talking Canaries and Voices of the Dead - including a live demonstration of recording on wax, at the Last Tuesday Society, London, 10 December 2010
Spacedog play in the De La Warr Pavilion, modernist icon, Bexhill on Sea, 29 October 2010
Playing theremin in the new Radio City Frankenstein show, Theatre Royal, Brighton, 24 October 2010
The Machinery - AV and dance performance with Caroline Radcliffe, British Science Festival, 18 September 2010
Uncanny Valley -music and robots from Spacedog and Prof. Elemental at the Hen & Chickens, London, 26-28 August 2010
Soho Shorts Festival (July 2010) - Spacedog will be performing live with the Ealing Feeder, as part of ArtHertz' Electricity and Ghosts - details tbc
Uncanny Valley - a new live show from Spacedog, Prof. Elemental and assorted robot friends, Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, 5 May 2010
Spacedog with Jane Bom-Bane and Nick Pynn, Bom-Bane's, Brighton, 13 May 2010
Electricity and Ghosts - live performance at Battersea Power Station (date tbc)
Electricity and Ghosts preview at the Kinetica Art Fair, 5-7 February 2010
Shift Run Stop - podcast interview, January 2010 Demo at Dorkbot Recording live onto a wax cylinder, using an original Edison phonograph, Catalyst Club, Brighton, 10 December 2009 Clog dancing as early noise music, with Caroline Radcliffe, Central, London, 4 December 2009 Robin Ince's Darwin birthday bash Transfer New multimodal effect, in collaboration with Punchdrunk
Sleigh ride (Troika), from Prokovief's Lieutenant Kije, played on the robotic bells
This bell rig is regularly used in live performance - this is the Mk III version, built December 2008.