Sunday 21 March 2010

The Seasons: Radiophonic Workshop(1969)




















The Seasons, Radiophonic Music & Poetry from BBC Schools Series Drama Workshop.

This is a BBC Study Record originally intended for use in Primary Schools, and features material from the BBC Schools Radio Series: Drama Workshop which was first broadcast in the Autumn of 1968.
A strange product of the early BBC Radiophonic Workshop, it's an unintentionally dark, folky electronic album that plays with a pagan flavour close to "The Wicker Man" and Arthur Machen's English stories of the occult. The contempory music label Ghost Box references it as a noteworthy influence on the hauntology genre.
This is a rip from the ultra rare vinyl LP: BBC Records Catalogue Number RESR 7 (1969). It features 12 Poems for the months of the year by Ronald Duncan and 4 poems for the seasons of the year by Derek Bowskill, set to a superb score of Radiophonic Music (of the concrete/electronic, pre-synthesiser era), composed and recorded at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop by David Cain. Presentation is by Derek Bowskill.
Album release date: 1969
Source: Vinyl Rip
Includes scans of the front and back LP covers, plus the record labels in jpg format.
Edit: after a very polite request from friend of the Cottage, mr Jonny Trunk, I have removed the download links for this file as the album will shortly receive an official release on TRUNK RECORDS.
You can read more about the reissue here.

11 comments:

  1. Blimey, now wonder we've all got a taste for weird shit, being force-fed this when we were wee bairns

    "Larks are the sparks torn from the revolving earth as in turns like a wheel in the night"

    Another winner

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  2. Those poor children. This music is probably illegal now, sonically speaking. Not the file sharing thing, you're definitely breaking the law in that respect! Fuck the Police!!

    Thanks, you freak. Keep them coming.

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  3. I'll do bong rips over this without question tonight and will probably be strangely amused knowing its target audience at the time. Thanks again for the unknown.

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  4. Many thanks! Heard tracks from this only recently on Stuart Maconie's Freakier Zone.

    I wonder if anyone sent off for the set of slides that were advertised on the sleeve, and were intended to be shown as the music played?

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  5. We used to get shit like this played to us at my primary school. No wonder I'm so fucked up. Great stuff.

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  6. Jarvis Cocker played all of this over several months on his 6Music show.

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  7. Great that Trunk is reissuing this or is it? We all downloaded it for free and have been enjoying it since now Jonny want to make listeners pay him for the pleasure. Sure it will have shiny new sleeve and all but who cares?
    Bob

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    Replies
    1. I do!!!! Not for the cash, I don't get any, but because you can hold it in your hand!!

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    2. Well if you are David I played it on my radio program @ whfr.fm "Space is the Place" on 3-9-12. Why doe's that guy think vinyl is exploding all over the place. It's Bloody Nice ta Hold it in Your Fucking Hand. Farmer in the Sky

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  8. Is it better to hold it in your hand or hear it in your head? Music is intangible after all.

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