One of the pioneers of electronic music and co-composer of the first all electronic film score, Bebe Barron, died this past April 20th of natural cases at the age of 82. She along with her husband, Louis Barron, who passed away in 1989, composed the sound effects / soundtrack to the 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet.

Charlotte May Wind (her husband nicknamed her Bebe) was born in Minneapolis in 1925. She earned a degree in music at the University of Minnesota then moved to New York, where she worked as a researcher for Time-Life. Soon after, she met and married Louis Barron in 1947. As a wedding gift the Barrons received a tape recorder and began delving into the world of musique concrete (music created by sounds other than musical instruments, often referred to as “real world” sounds). In 1948 Louis Barron was inspired by the book Cybernetics: Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, by MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener. After studying Wiener’s equations, Louis began building electronic circuits to generate sounds. That combined with recorded tape, created a unique and otherworldly aural experience. After moving to Greenwich Village, the Barrons built a recording studio and became entrenched in New York’s burgeoning avant-garde scene. In their studio they recorded the likes of Aldous Huxley, Anais Nin, Henry Miller and Tennessee Williams reading their work; they also recorded and worked with many like-thinking composers such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and David Tudor. In addition, the Barrons scored their first soundtracks to several experimental short films by Ian Hugo, husband of Anais Nin.

As one can imagine, guest lectures from Californian electronic producers who dress in Victorian garb is not a daily occurrence here at the University of Limerick in Ireland.  Gigs in this Irish city by Californian electronic producers are equally close to the ground. 

Hence, the intense local media focus on one Alfred Darlington, better known as Daedelus, regarding his mini-tour of Ireland.  The man's lamb-chop sideburns have been a staple image in both regional and national newspapers for the last few weeks, the anticipation around the city and university morphing into something so pronounced that you could feel the interest tingling in that cold April air. 

I guess Irish weather has quite a lot in common with the music of Daedelus, given that both are unpredictable and dramatic – sometimes calm, sometimes wild.  Despite this similarity, Friday (April 11) saw sunshine all the way for the Limerick leg of the tour, following his annihilation of ClubHeadBangBang in Kerry the night before. 

Organised by the Music Technology Department along with local event promotors Kerrynini and Cheebah, the seminar took an informal approach in the same vein as the man's music: open, informal, inviting, all underpinned by a sense of chaotic genius.  What was instantly apparent is the fact that Daedelus is truly a friendly chap, addressing the gathered students and beat-heads in a relaxed, modest manner, despite suffering from an acute case of jet-lag.  Luckily, he's had his coffee.  His accounts of his early explorations into digging were both fascinating and funny, relating how his competitive digging-buddies pushed him out of the funk and soul crates and into the altogether stranger world of childrens' recordings and soundtracks.