Cuando he visto esto me he quedado completamente de piedra. Esta mujer es uno de los pilares de todo lo que fue después el Radiophonic Workshop de la BBC. Como Delya Derbyshire, sus grabaciones fueron mínimas para la cantidad de talento que atesoraban. En concreto la srta. Oram sólo tenía una grabación publicada como un disco de sonidos electrónicos para niños. Y una grabación de su faceta más experimental había aparecido en la serie de Subrosa dedicada al ruido en la música del siglo pasado como en el muy extraño, variado, sorprendente e iluminador recopilatorio comisionado por David Toop para la revista “Leonardo”, “Not Necessarily "English Music"” en 2001. Estos fueron los comentarios del compositor Hugh Davies sobre su pieza “Four Aspects” y sobre la persona y su influencia:

“This excerpt consists of the final 5 minutes of an 8-minute electronic composition, starting near the end of the second variation-like aspect. It is probably the most interesting of the earliest British tape compositions for concert performance, from around 1960 (several years later than in many other countries). No doubt fortuitously, the main thematic material and atmosphere of the work uncannily anticipates that of Brian Eno's first recorded ambient work, Discreet Music (1975).
Daphne Oram was born in 1925. Following her musical studies she worked as a music balancer for BBC radio in London. Her unperformed, half-hour-long Still Point (1950), for double orchestra, prerecorded instrumental sounds and live electronic treatments, may well have been the very first composition in any country to incorporate live electronic transformation. In the mid-1950s, having failed to convince anyone at the BBC of the importance of the recently introduced electronic music and musique concrète, she began with Desmond Briscoe to assemble a temporary tape studio at night after broadcasting had finished, producing in this manner, both independently and in collaboration, background music for several radio and TV drama broadcasts. This led in 1958 to the foundation, primarily sponsored by the drama department, of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, of which she was the first director. However, unhappy with the lack of interest in the musical possibilities of the medium, she left in 1959 to set up her own private Oramics studio.
Like Raymond Scott in the same period, Daphne Oram combined her work as a composer with developing a specialized composition machine; they both financed their studios by concentrating on commercial work, in Oram's case primarily for television and documentary films. Her only commercially recorded work is Electronic Sound Patterns (1962), in the series Listen, Move and Dance. A working version of the Oramics machine, involving drawn sound techniques, was completed in the mid-1960s, so it did not feature in the creation of Four Aspects. This machine was overtaken by digital developments in the 1980s, and Oram spent several years working on a computer-based system to replace it. Following two strokes in the mid-1990s, she has sadly been unable to continue any of her work.
I now manage the archive of Daphne Oram's papers and tape recordings; my first experience of working in an electronic music studio was as a guest at her studio in 1962. It is likely that a recording of her electronic compositions will be released in the future.”


La virtud de ese recopilatorio era hacerte ver como la influencia del Radiophonic Workshop, la música rock, el free jazz, el arte conceptual, la música contemporánea y el sistema educativo en la rama de artes en el Reino Unido, generó una escena casi desconocida en la totalidad de sus conexiones y la relevancia de su música cuya historia aún ha de ser contada. Cornelius Cardew y su Scratch Orchestra, la música improvisada europea saliendo de un trío que contaba con Gavin Bryars en sus filas, AMM teloneando a Pink Floyd e influyendo en su forma de atacar la guitarra a Syd Barrett, Derek Bayley fundando el primer sello independiente británico (tal como ahora conocemos la independencia) regido por los artistas junto a Tony Oxley y Evan Parker, Evan Parker formando parte de las formaciones de los expatriados sudafricanos que giraban alrededor del sello de Henry Millar, todos los artistas que curiosamente acabaron formando parte del mítico sello Obscure Records de Brian Eno, que obviamente surgió de ese mismo caldo de cultivo.
Hugh Davies murió hace algunos años, por lo que las grabaciones del archivo de la compositora parecían iban a perderse sin dejar rastro alguno. Así que uno de los discos de este año.