(First published in Issue 97 of Electronic Sound magazine, January 2023)
RITUAL AND RESISTANCE
For almost two decades, Alan Gubby has been turning his fascination with electronic music, state propaganda and esoteric traditions into a sprawling, multi-media undertaking: The Delaware Road. His new book of the same title is the definitive record of this uniquely unsettling project
Words: Bob Fischer
“Like many of my generation, I have a lot of childhood memories of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop,” enthuses Alan Gubby. “Especially from children’s TV shows and educational programs from the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Sparkly sonic seeds were planted in our minds…”
Alan is the mastermind behind The Delaware Road, a multi-media project ostensibly following the exploits of two fictional electronic musicians – Iain Parker and Cissy Wakefield. Employed by the “British Radio & Television Corporation” in the 1960s, the duo uncover an abandoned wartime studio once used to broadcast eldritch propaganda to occupied Europe, and are drawn into a dangerous world of bohemian experimentation and veiled state control. The story is entirely invented, but Alan’s initial inspiration came while researching the life of celebrated Radiophonic Workshop member, John Baker.
“I was visiting electronic music forums around 2004,” recalls Alan, also founder of the Buried Treasure record label. “I found a post from John’s brother, Richard Anthony Baker, saying he had a box of John’s tapes from the 1960s, and asking if anyone wanted them. The post was already six months old, so I thought there was no chance, but I messaged him anyway. He replied and said ‘I’m looking at the tapes now… nobody’s interested’. So we set to work transferring them, and Jonny Trunk came onboard to help release them”.
Two resulting volumes of The John Baker Tapes were issued by Trunk Records in 2008, and showcased the breadth of the late composer’s stark electronic recordings. In the meantime, Alan was striking up a burgeoning friendship with Richard.
“Richard was telling me all about John,” he explains. “And about the creative art world of the 1960s. Some lovely stories, but John also struggled with addiction and health issues. When he left the BBC in 1973, it was a dark period in his life, and Richard hinted that John may have been dabbling with some unusual interests. He completely burnt his own house down, and the fire brigade said it had been caused by a mysterious circle of flame in the basement.
“Then, a couple of years later, I heard Cerys Matthews on 6 Music, interviewing a lady who worked at BBC Maida Vale during the Second World War. She was talking about how the studios were used for government ‘Black Propaganda’ broadcasts. The idea for The Delaware Road spiralled from there.”
The project has since evolved to encompass a graphic novel, live performances and a compilation album of music by the likes of Howlround, The Dandelion Set, The Twelve Hour Foundation and Alan’s own experimental outfit, Revbjelde. An authoritative voice has been provided by poet David “Dolly Dolly” Yates, whose Churchillian tones see him regularly assume the persona of the Corporation’s sinister overlord, Sir Babbington-Gifford. And this intimidating character has acted as the host to some extraordinary live events. What began in 2015 as a one-off evening at Reading’s South Street Arts Centre took on an extra dimension when transferred, in 2017, to the Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker in Essex. Here, a line-up including Ian Helliwell, Teleplasmiste, DJ Food and Concretism performed amid the abandoned Cold War technology of an underground labyrinth once intended to house the British government in the event of nuclear war.
In 2019, Alan took this obsession with military installations a step further, bringing a multi-stage festival to the concrete “stone tents” of an active MoD training facility on Salisbury Plain. Attendees were bemused to find themselves driving carefully along miles of secret pathways, all marked with signs warning of “Unexploded Military Debris”.
“Did you hear about the landmine we found at the entrance?” he smiles. “One of our performers, Geraldine Hudson, was looking for a suitable position to conduct a midnight ritual. She did a recce during the day with my crew, and I received an anxious phone call to say they’d found an unexploded mine. Thank God it wasn’t live – we quickly called in the military and they explained it was a dud left over from a recent exercise!”
The new book, simply titled The Delaware Road, collects the existing instalments of the graphic novel, telling Iain and Cissy’s story in script form with new illustrations by artists including Jarrod Gosling and Nick Taylor. There’s also an extensive appendix of photography: the definitive visual record of those disquieting live events. Alan concedes this may be the full stop on the entire project, but he’s been enjoying himself giving each order a uniquely hand-pressed wax seal.
“There’s something bizarrely therapeutic about it,” he laughs. “And if there’s any aspect of this where I may have actually dabbled in occultism, it’s most likely in pouring molten wax onto all those envelopes…”
The Delaware Road book is available here:
https://www.thedelawareroad.com
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https://electronicsound.co.uk/
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