| No Sci-fi film, TV or radio
series can ever be complete unless it has its own unique and ample assemblage of way-out
intergalactic sound effects. Made on synthesizers, harmonizers and other electronic sound
benders, and constructed with the aid of multiple multi-track tape decks, each sound was
made for a specific event in a specific programme. Yet each sound stands on its own,
whether it be a straightforward laser or plasma blaster, or a complete spacecraft crashing
into the sea of a hitherto unknown planet. The
Renaissance of Science fiction has been manifest throughout film, TV and radio, and this
album covers much of the period of this revival. Although already popular on TV, the
recent success of Sci-Fi on radio has made almost as great an impact, so that stories that
started off on film have continued on radio, and those most successful on radio have
followed through on TV. No album of Sci-Fi sounds could ignore this multi-media trend, and
so reproduced here are sounds used by the immortal Dr Who, the intrepid Blake's 7, the
zany intergalactic Hitch-Hikers, and the crew of the starship 'Challenger' from Radio
4's'Earthsearch'.
This record is a must for all Sci-Fi-ists, but it is not just a library of offstage sound
effects. It is playable in its own right as a stimulus to the vivid imagination of you,
the listener. Landing the Tardis or blasting away with laser cannon in now within the
reach of us all.
Recordings by Dick Mills, Elizabeth Parker, Lloyd Silverthorne and Richard
Yeoman Clarke
Album compilation by William Grierson
NB Many of these recordings are in monaural sound, since they have been created specially
for TV or radio production |
