Sunday, March 11, 2007

David Vorhaus & White Noise-White Noise III - Re-Entry(1980)+ White Noise IV - Inferno (1989 or 1990),LPs,UK


White Noise is an electronic music band formed in London, England in 1969 by American born David Vorhaus B.Sc, Dip. Elec, a classical bass player with a background in both physics and electronic engineering. He was initially joined by BBC Radiophonic Workshop composers Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, both ex of electronic music project Unit Delta Plus.
Biography
An Electric Storm
In 1969 White Noise released the groundbreaking album An Electric Storm on Island Records. The album was created using a variety of tape manipulation techniques, and is notable for its early use of the first British synthesizer, the EMS Synthi VCS3. Amongst many oddities, the first track on the album Love Without Sound employed speeded up tape edits of Vorhaus playing the double bass to create violin and cello sounds.
'I use voices a lot too, but not as conventional vocals. I always use a lot of voices, and if somebody having an orgasm in the background is used as part of one of the waveforms, it makes the sound more interesting, without the listener actually knowing what they're hearing.' Interview with David Vorhaus
Although not initially commercially successful for Island, it has over the years proved to be a cult classic, going on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, namechecked by such contemporary artists as The Orb and Julian Cope, influencing such contemporary acts Broadcast and Add N to (X).
A brief extract from An Electric Storm can be heard in the Hammer Film Productions film Dracula AD 1972.
White Noise II-III
Following the departure of Derbyshire and Hodgson to other projects, Vorhaus released a second album, the largely instrumental White Noise II - Concerto for Synthesizer on Virgin Records in 1974. Typically dark in atmosphere, it was recorded in his own studio in Camden, North London. The album further utilized the ESM VCS3, as well as prototype sequencers.
A third album, the single track 'space fantasy' White Noise III - Re-Entry was released by Pulse Records in 1980. By this time the instrumentation had expanded to include synthesizers and a drum machine.
White Noise IV-V
A further two albums were released, the atmospheric White Noise IV - Inferno (AMP Records) (1990), which incorporated use of samples, and White Noise V - Sound Mind (2000) an experiment in what he calles Dark Ambient:
'It means I won't be getting on Top Of The Pops, but I felt the category was broad enough that I could redefine it in ways that I couldn't redefine other genres, such as country and western - much as I'd like to! There's a lot of scope for experimentation and on one track, 'Dark Matter', anything that is recognisable is out - no harmony, not pitch, no rhythm. It's so dark, you can't even see the stars!'
get WHITE NOISE III Here

and GET WHITE NOISE IV Here

7 comments:

Electric Voodoo said...

Very cool!! Right where my heads at. Thanks!!! Great posts today!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks - I've only ever heard White Noise 1 & 2 and am looking forward to this !

Doug said...

Thank you very much! I love An Electric Storm and I've been very curious to hear this stuff.

Unknown said...

Request: White Noise II....have heard the orig. but no others till now.

Elvis said...

i'd really like to have these 2 but i got this message: This file is copyrighted and may not be distributed without permission of the copyright holder. We will direct you to rapidtainment.com where you can check out entertainment products.

help anyone?

the saucer people said...

The above poster is correct, it looks like the two later David Vorhaus albums White Noise III & IV have become victims of last years outbreak of the fascist mind by RS when they took down terrabytes of albums that had the title in the link...

Strangely though, a little digging and you can still find live links from RS of the 2 albums previously posted on Mutant Sounds (not sure if they are the same rips but it clearly shows the arbitary and almost random nature of the RS rip culling as the titles in the links are virtually the same):

http://rapidshare.com/files/304078245/white_noise_-_1980_-_white_noise_iii__re-entry.zip

http://rapidshare.com/files/304083892/white_noise_-_1989_-_white_noise_iv__inferno.zip

If anyone is looking for the earlier White Noise albums (or White Noise 5) and some nice photos of the sonic goddess and god of sixties and seventies UK electronica Delia Derbyshire & Brian Hodgson as well as some cool David Vorhaus quotes check this post out:

http://neueurform.blogspot.com/2009/11/white-noise-special.html

I remember hearing the first White Noise album in the early eighties as a young teenager, back then it was spoken of in almost holy grail terms..if you had a sixth generation C60 copy you were so terminally cool never mind owning the actual vinyl though I do remember picking up a copy for a quid in a Bradford market a couple of years later sandwiched as it was between a load of K-Tel seventies compilations if memory serves...anyway, enough of the sad nostalgia trip...White Noise still has the power to cause cognitive dissonance over 40 years from their first release though if Delia & Brian had stuck around.....

Anonymous said...

Can you put the cd's on rapidshare again? I only have the first two and I love them. Can't seem to find the rest... Thank you! ;)