White Noise

White Noise unveiled their opening full-length effort An Electric Storm in 1969, just as the Moog synthesizer was beginning to surface cautiously across pop releases from acts such as the Monkees and Simon & Garfunkel. Earlier tone generators of a simpler design had already supplied atmospheric touches to outfits like the United States of America. Yet no prior or subsequent pop or rock album had undergone such exacting construction built chiefly from custom-assembled devices and tape machines.

The White Noise endeavor originated inside the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, previously recognized around the globe for creating the signature music to Doctor Who. Staffed by a compact group of engineers and composers tasked with supplying forward-looking sound and music for BBC television and radio output, the workshop counted Delia Derbyshire among its members, later hailed by successive generations as an originator of British techno. Derbyshire joined Peter Zinovieff and Brian Hodgson in Unit Delta Plus, established in 1966 to advance the writing and presentation of electronic music; one such presentation prompted American David Vorhaus to begin composing his own electronic works. Vorhaus, whose father had been blacklisted as a film director, had relocated to the U.K. to sidestep conscription while pursuing an electronics qualification alongside classical studies and double-bass performance.

Vorhaus convinced Derbyshire and Hodgson to join him on a project leaning more toward pop while they continued their BBC positions. After completing two pieces on a six-Revox configuration locked together via one remote switch, Vorhaus met Island Records executive Chris Blackwell, whose enthusiasm led to a commission for an entire album. Although the trio initially aimed to profit from issuing the finished tracks as a single, the £3,000 advance from Blackwell shifted their plans. They constructed a combined studio and laboratory in Camden Town using requisitioned components and makeshift apparatus, then enlisted acquaintances to contribute drumming, words, and singing. The bulk of effort went into shaping the instrumental foundations; lacking any keyboard-equipped polyphonic synthesizer, every chord required layering through countless careful tape splices. Techniques drawn from musique concrète saw naturally produced sounds passed through extensive electronic alteration and tape treatment. Vorhaus later asserted that An Electric Storm contained more edits than any other recording in history.

A year into the work, Island—now without Blackwell—grew uneasy over the outlay. At that stage the album's second side ran only eleven minutes, so they pressed Vorhaus to complete it without delay. Having absorbed Pink Floyd's recent A Saucerful of Secrets, whose extended instrumental featured a drum pattern supporting dense layers of sound, Vorhaus saw a route to close his own project similarly. The outcome was the unsettling yet somewhat absurd “Black Mass: An Electric Storm in Hell,” substituting the celestial voices of the Floyd track with the cries of spirits condemned to endless suffering. Live performance of the album proved impossible, and the absence of promotional interviews contributed to weak initial sales. Word of mouth nevertheless built a lasting profile that sustained modest sales through the 1970s and afterward, establishing the record as one unlike any other.

By 1970 White Noise had already been eclipsed by rapid change. Once the Moog synthesizer reached broad availability, the Radiophonic Workshop equipment that had defined the album's character turned outdated almost immediately, eliminating any prospect of a comprehensive sequel. Years afterward Vorhaus revived the White Noise name for a solo instrumental release on Virgin consisting solely of Moog performances and titled White Noise 2: Concerto for Synthesizer. By then the market teemed with synthesizer albums, so the record made scant impression. A third album, Re-Entry, appeared on the Pulse label in 1980 and fared likewise, as did Sound Mind in 2000 and Inferno in 2001.