Dance music secret of Dr Who composer
The woman behind the original Dr Who theme created some of the earliest electronic dance music, it has been revealed.
An academic team have stumbled across the tapes made 20 years before groups like 808 state and Orbital while cataloguing and preserving the early recordings by Delia Derbyshire.
Following her death in 2001, the collection was entrusted to Radiophonic Workshop archivist Mark Ayres, who donated the 267 tapes to the University of Manchester.
The tapes - many of which have not been heard for 30 years - show she used a combination of techniques, tape manipulation and electronic gadgetry to create her sounds.
Some of the recording are said to be very similar to early electronic dance music which became popular 20 years after she started recording it.
University expert Dr Butler said: "Delia Derbyshire never really received the recognition she deserved as one of our most influential composers of the past 30 or so years.
"Many of the tapes have no labels so it’s a case of using detective work to find out what they are – we can’t even be certain Delia composed all of the music.
"But it’s already proved to be an Aladdin’s cave and we’ve just started to scratch the surface.
"The collection includes her freelance work and really does give us a better sense of her range as a composer."
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