9. White NoiseAn Electric Storm
An Electric Storm has to be the most groundbreaking yet completely underrated electronic record of the 20th century. I still find it hard to believe how many people I know who have never listened to it or even heard of it. It can be a difficult album to listen to, it’s an acquired taste I suppose but it’s so inventive. Especially when you consider it contains absolutely no synthesisers or sequencers. Everything on the album was played by hand then edited later on tape. The compositions and much of the playing was by David Vorhaus but the extraordinary tape manipulations and intricate tape editing was by the late, great Delia Derbyshire. Its use of weird effects, stereo and complex juxtapositions was completely out of this world, there’s never been anything like it since. It’s another of those albums I listen to at least three or four times a year. So a conservative estimate means I’ve listened to it about 200 times, that’s how good I think it is. Yet it was considered a flop… it is not, it’s bloody amazing.
