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Delia's BBC Studio
SOUND CLIPS ARE BACK!

We are currently compiling a comprehensive Deliaography of recordings, events and shows Delia has worked on. Here is a tiny selection of Delia's work, together with illustrative MP3 clips

Tutankhamun's Egypt NEW

We're sadly lacking background information on this one at present. We believe it came from a 1971 series written by Cyril Aldred. It's a full-on Delian trip... starting with trumpet calls from a 1939 recording of the silver trumpet found in Tutankhamun's burial chamber, it then enters the mesmerising desert territory Delia mapped out so memorably in Blue Veils & Golden Sands.
Tutankhamun's Egypt: MP3

Dreams

Part of the four programme Inventions for Radio series, created in collaboration with Barry Bermange, Dreams is a collection of spliced/reassembled interviews with people describing their dreams. Delia's editing and repetition, together with her dissonant, often terrifying musique concrete soundbeds, make this distinctly uneasy bedtime listening. The entire piece is 45 minutes in length - here we present a somewhat lo-fi 9 minute clip.
Dreams: MP3 (edit)

Blue Veils & Golden Sands BUY IT ON CD

Recorded in the mid '60s, this Delia Derbyshire composition was mostly created using electronic oscillators - severely high-pass filtered - to give the "shimmering heat haze" backdrop to the Tuareg tribesmen weaving slowly across the screen of a period documentary. Delia has since referred to the piece as including her "castrated oboe", but the only non-electronic source really recorded is her voice, cut up and re-pieced.
Blue Veils & Golden Sands: MP3 (edit)

Moogies Bloogies

"He came to my little one room flat above a flower shop ... He was thrilled to bits with it! He said, and I felt quite insulted at the time... 'I'll soon get you out of this little place.'"
Delia on Anthony Newley (MP3)
An unreleased perv-pop classic in the 1966 novelty vein, recorded with Anthony Newley. The future Mr Joan Collins was after an electronic backing track and called in Delia (he wasn't alone - Paul McCartney considered using Delia's electronic backing for Yesterday before using a string quartet). Delia said of this track: "I'd written this beautiful little innocent tune, all sensitive love and innocence, and he made it into a dirty old raincoat song. But he was really chuffed!" Sadly Newley decamped to Hollywood before he could progress beyond this demo recording. Delia was initially disappointed with the recording, but as the years passed she became exceptionally fond of it, and insisted it was featured on this site.
Moogies Bloogies: MP3

Music of Spheres

While the air-raid sirens and bombing sounds of Delia's youth in wartime Coventry certainly shaped her music, this piece makes that influence explicit. This rare recording has only ever been released on an EMS promotional record.
Music of Spheres: MP3

Planetarium

This piece, described as "non-rhythmic" on its original release on a 1969 Standard Music Library disc was recorded while Delia was still employed at the Radiophonic Workshop and working on the White Noise LP. This abstract electronic track, originally released under the pseudonym Russe (aka Li De la Russe - or "Of the Red" - a reference to her auburn red hair) also features work from David Vorhaus and Brian Hodgson (aka St.George - he was also still under contract to the Beeb!)
Planetarium: MP3

Delia's Theme

Another recording made for David Platz's Standard Music Library / Essex Music group, and again credited Russe. Described on the sleeve as "Waltz tempo, complete theme," it was used for the Cilla Black driven British '60s classic Work is a four letter word. Cilla (surprise, surprise) takes a lorra Magic Mushrooms, accompanied by Delia's music, and generally plays the working class (contraceptive) pill popping girl of her Swingin' times. Groovy, Fab and Gear.
Delia's Theme: MP3