White Noise
By the time White Noise's debut album, An Electric Storm, arrived in 1969, the Moog synthesizer had already started to make tentative appearances on pop records by the likes of the Monkees and Simon & Garfunkel. More primitive tone generators had also provided spacy effects for bands like the United States of America. But no other pop or rock record before (or since) had been so painstakingly assembled using mainly homemade equipment and tape recorders.
The White Noise project had its origins in the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, whose previous claim to worldwide fame was the theme music to Doctor Who. The workshop was peopled by a small team of technical wizards and musicians whose principal function was to generate futuristic effects and music for BBC TV and radio programs. Among them was Delia Derbyshire, frequently championed by future generations as a pioneer of British techno. Derbyshire, Peter Zinovieff, and Brian Hodgson were also members of a group called Unit Delta Plus, formed in 1966 to promote the composition and performance of electronic music, and it was one of their lectures that inspired an American named David Vorhaus to start writing his own electronic music. The son of a blacklisted film director, Vorhaus had come to the U.K. to avoid the draft and earn an electronics degree, while also studying classical music and playing the double bass.
Vorhaus persuaded Derbyshire and Hodgson to collaborate on a more pop-oriented project with him while maintaining their day jobs at the BBC. With two tracks in the can, recorded on a six-Revox setup synchronized by a single remote control, Vorhaus was introduced to Island Records' Chris Blackwell, who was so impressed that he commissioned a whole album. The team had been hoping to make a killing by selling the two tracks as a single, but Blackwell's advance of £3,000 prompted them to reconsider. They set about building their own studio-cum-science lab in Camden Town out of "borrowed" gear and improvised equipment. A number of friends were brought in to provide drums, lyrics, and vocals, but most of the team's time was expended on realizing the backing tracks. With no keyboard-based polyphonic synthesizers available to them, every last chord had to be assembled from numerous tape edits painstakingly stuck together. Much use was made of musique concrète techniques, whereby physically generated sounds would be subjected to all manner of electronic distortion and tape manipulation. Vorhaus later ventured his opinion that An Electric Storm contained more edits than any other album in the history of recording.
The process had already lasted a year when Island -- with Blackwell having departed -- began to feel a little twitchy about their investment. Though at that point the album's second side was still only 11 minutes long, they demanded that Vorhaus finish it pronto. Having heard Pink Floyd's recently released A Saucerful of Secrets, a lengthy instrumental track on which a drum riff underpins a cacophony of noise, Vorhaus realized he might get away with something similar to finish his album. The result was the hair-raising -- if faintly risible -- "Black Mass: An Electric Storm in Hell," which replaces Saucerful's heavenly choir with the sound of souls screaming in eternal torment. Inevitably, there was no way Vorhaus and his team could reproduce the album live, and with a similar vacuum on the interview front the album initially sold poorly. Yet through word of mouth it acquired a reputation that kept it selling in modest quantities throughout the '70s and beyond. Quite simply, it's an album that sounds like no other.
By 1970, however, White Noise had been overtaken by events. As the Moog synthesizer became widely available, the kind of equipment used by the Radiophonic Workshop team became obsolete almost overnight. And since it was this very equipment that gave the White Noise album so much of its charm, there was never any question of a full-scale follow-up. However, several years later Vorhaus attempted to revive the White Noise name with a solo instrumental album for Virgin performed entirely on the Moog and called, somewhat portentously, White Noise 2: Concerto for Synthesizer. By then, though, the market was already flooded with synth albums and the record made little impact. A third album called Re-Entry for the Pulse label in 1980 met a similar fate, as did Sound Mind (2000) and Inferno (2001).
© Christopher Evans /TiVo
-
-
White Noise ASMR (Repeat, Loop, All Night, No Fade)
White Noise, Sleep, Sounds Sleep, White Noise for Babies
Ambient - Released by White Noise - White Noise For Babies - Sleep Sounds - Sleep on 16 mrt. 2023
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
!!!" White Noise Womb Aid "!!!
New age - Released by Calming Times on 20 jan. 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
!!!" White Noise: Machine Hum "!!!
New age - Released by Marina View on 14 mrt. 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
pink noise black screen
White Noise, Sleep Baby Sleep, Deep Sleep
New age - Released by Soothing Sounds on 23 nov. 2022
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Zen Pink Noise
White Noise, Brown Noise, White Noise Baby Sleep, Pink Noise
New age - Released by Pusic Entertainment B.V. on 25 jan. 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
White Noise For Babies (Loop All Night)
White Noise, White Noise Baby Sleep, White Noise for Baby Sleep, White Noise For Sleeping
Ambient - Released by White Noise - White Noise Baby Sleep - White Noise For Baby Sleep - White Noise For Sleeping on 10 dec. 2023
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
White Noise (Loop Forever)
White Noise, Sounds Sleep, Sleep Sound Library
Ambient - Released by White Noise - Sleep Sounds - Sleep Sound Library on 15 okt. 2022
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
White and Pink Nice Sleepful Sounds Noises
Lounge - Released by Filip Szyszkowski on 23 apr. 2020
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rainbow White Noise
White Noise, White Noise Baby Sleep, Brown Noise, Pink Noise
New age - Released by Pusic Entertainment B.V. on 25 jan. 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
!!!" Son Du Ventilateur Bruit blanc "!!!
New age - Released by Cold Water on 2 apr. 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
!!" Sons De L'Utérus De Bruit Blanc "!!
New age - Released by Quanty on 27 dec. 2020
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Loopable Brown Noise
White Noise, Brown Noise, Pink Noise, White Noise Baby Sleep
New age - Released by Pusic Entertainment B.V. on 25 jan. 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
43 White Noise Sounds For Newborn
New age - Released by Quanty on 9 dec. 2020
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
!!!" Air Conditioner And Fan Sounds "!!!
New age - Released by Relaxing Moments on 2 mei 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
-
!!!" Bruit blanc en cascade "!!!
New age - Released by Comfy sofa on 10 okt. 2022
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sound Asleep - Lullaby for Deep Sleep, Listen Silence, New Age Music for Sleep
New age - Released by Calm Spirit Record on 2 sep. 2016
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
!!" Fan Sounds For Sleep "!!
New age - Released by Calming Times on 12 dec. 2020
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo