The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

“Experimental music is too much of a challenge for most people,” says Broadcast’s James Cargill. “I think it’s because we’re conditioned to hear sounds in a certain way; not just the simple conventions of pop but everything from the harmonies of Beethoven to the series of notes that Pythagoras invented, which have never been questioned. So I guess it’s not surprising that when an artist does break the mould it can cause a lot of people to get quite wound up.”

Broadcast have been winding people up since 1995 when, bored by the blokeyness of Brit pop, they set out to dissipate the lager and lads mag culture with their proudly academic electronica.

Currently recording their fourth album, the duo - comprised of Cargill and Trish Keenan - will be performing a rare DJ set at Radiophonia, part of AV Festival 08, a 10-day electronic arts gathering spanning Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough.

Electronic artist Brian Duffy will also be performing alongside Broadcast at the event, but undoubtedly the biggest draw is an illustrated seminar by Dick Mills, chief sound engineer of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the pioneering group of artists and engineers responsible for the classic Doctor Who theme tune. Founded by the BBC in 1958, the Workshop was staffed by a group of free-thinking innovators and quickly became the leading force in producing all manner of offbeat sounds in the days before synthesizers, samplers and multi-track recorders.

“The thing that’s always struck me about them was how little they had but how creative they were,” says Cargill. “You just don’t see that anymore. I remember watching a really inspiring documentary about them where their approach to music was not to struggle with a pre-planned idea but to look at the primitive equipment they had and work out from there what they had the potential to create.”

The techniques initially favoured by the Radiophonic Workshop were closely related to those used in musique concrète where new sounds were created by using recordings of everyday noises such as voices alongside radiophonic manipulations that would alter the pitch beyond recognition.

The workshop’s groundbreaking work became significant not just in broadcasting circles but also in the development of electro-acoustic composition, inspiring countless musicians during the sixties and seventies, including legendary French composer and musician Jean-Jacques Perrey who will be speaking at the festival as well as performing with American experimentalist Dana Countryman.

Perrey - now nearly 80-years-old, but still incredibly prolific - is best known for his space age pop sounds created using the Ondioline, magnetic tape and Moog synthesizers. Along with dub pioneers such as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, the Frenchman is credited with inventing sampling and bringing tape loop technologies into the mainstream, something that Cargill feels is often overlooked.

“Although it’s become something of an obsession for me, delving into the history of electronic music is definitely something that should be explored more,” he says. “A lot of people run the risk of getting this sort of handed-down history and that’s when things go wrong. But, you know, it kind of starts and ends with the Radiophonic Workshop and Jean-Jacques Perrey anyway; the way they worked is a model for any band.”

AV Festival,
February 28 - March 8, www.avfestival.co.uk
Radiophonia,
Saturday March 1,
The Sage, Gateshead.
Talk: 1pm, free. Concert: 8pm, £5.
Tickets: 0191 443 4661.