A brand new compilation of rare material by John Baker from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop!

John Baker (who worked for the BBC alongside Delia Derbyshire) ranks as one of the world’s most influential electronic musicians. His talent as a jazz pianist & ability to manipulate tiny fragments of tape into new sound is legendary.

Whilst working on ‘The John Baker Tapes’ compilation for Trunk Records, producer Alan Gubby unearthed several reels of music & sound effects from the 1960’s BBC TV series ‘Vendetta’ – a mafia themed cop thriller starring Italian actor Stelio Canelli (Barbarella, Django, Planet Of The Vampires). The theme tune for the show was composed by John Barry whilst Baker produced all the incidental music. He created brilliant, tense, rhythmic & unhinged James Bond style themes for the show between 1966 & 1968, featuring radiophonic beats, twanging bass lines & screaming jazz solos.

Available for the 1st time ever, Baker’s soundtrack for Vendetta displays his skill in fusing groovy tape loops, ambient drones & bass textures with real instruments. The music is thrilling, sleazy, deranged & very hip. Highlights from the score are presented on this compilation alongside other rare & previously unreleased Baker tracks, all digitally remastered by Mark Ayres from the Radiophonic Workshop archive.
Reviews for ‘The John Baker Tapes’:

“Squarepusher,_Venetian Snares_and_ Aphex_Twin would kill for the beats & squelches here – a visionary composer years ahead of his time” thelineofbestfit.com

“mystical & deranged – unprecedented amounts of Joe Meek / King Tubby echo – as strange & obscure as anything by Morricone. 9.5/10 ” popmatters.com

“extraordinary & flat-out insane music – with Stockausian shreds of found sound rising out of the mix” drownedinsound.com

“a gleeful sense of inventing the future in Baker’s work – none of today’s revivalists open up avenues of possibility the way these strange, short, four-decades-old snippets do” Bob Stanley / Saint Etienne.