Tag: Delia Derbyshire

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1968 2018 D Doctor Who Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Doctor Who: The Invasion – music by Don Harper

5 min read

Order this CDThe scores for Doctor Who‘s 20th century Cybermen episodes seem to have a habit of taking a torturous route to being released in their original form. A bit of clarification is in order: this release contains the original recordings from 1968 by Don Harper (whose handful of other scoring credits include an episode of the BBC2 sci-fi anthology Out Of The Unknown, and stock music used in George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead), the only music he ever composed for Doctor Who. Better known as a jazz musician, Harper’s services were engaged due to director Douglas Camfield’s curious habit of actively avoiding using Doctor Who’s “house composer” at the time, Dudley Simpson. Though many composers contributed to the 20th century series, there’s not another score quite like this one in the series’ history. Harper’s jazz leanings are on display, along with a very good dramatic instinct for the uniquely eerie music heard throughout The Invasion‘s eight episodes.

Why the clarification? Because Harper also re-recorded this music for the De Wolfe production music library under the title New Decades, which itself was later re-released as Cold Worlds, whereas this release has the original 1968 recordings. (The stories behind Doctor Who’s music can be just as strange-but-true as the rest of its behind-the-scenes lore.) On the one hand, The Invasion’s score sticks out quite noticeably from what came before and after it (the following story, The Krotons, has also been the subject of its own soundtrack release). But Harper has a very good sense of what the show’s “feel” is, and unnervingly dissonant tracks such as “International Electromatics Headquarters”, “The Cyber Director”, “The Cybermen, My Allies”, and “Plans For Invasion”, though brief, make the case that Harper would’ve made a fine addition to the rotation of the series’ musical talent if he had been hired to do so again. A much chirpier tone – almost “smurfy” in a way, and yet very, very 1968 in its feel – takes hold in the track “Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart”, giving the newly-promoted future series regular his own theme music in only his second appearance.

But the story doesn’t end there. Harper recorded a total of barely 20 minutes of music, intended to be used and re-used to track eight 25-minute episodes, and then, somewhat confoundingly, Camfield didn’t even use everything that was recorded. (One almost gets the feeling at times that Camfield would have preferred to skip musical underscores altogether but was coerced into including incidental music by the producers.) Also included are several tracks of effects and sound-design-bordering-on-music by Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, intended to provide additional musical options; tracks 15-34 are Harper’s unused score cues. Also tracked into the episode is a track by John Baker of the Radiophonic Workshop, “Time In Advance” (simply titled “Muzak” here), originally composed for an Out Of The Unknown episode of the same name. Baker’s work – with a lovely jazzy piano overdub sitting on top of an abstract yet tuneful radiophonic backing – sits nicely alongside Harper’s own jazz influences and doesn’t seem out of place. (I’ve never made a secret of the fact that “Time In Advance” is one of my all-time favorite pieces of classic Doctor Who music, so consider this reviewer’s biases fully on display here.)

3 out of 4With the brevity of the tracks presented, and the brevity of the score overall, it’s something of a minor miracle that this album tops out at just over an hour (thanks in large part to some of the lengthy, looped background sound effects tracks), and it’s a bit mind-boggling that a majority of the tracks presented have no story context, as they were left on the cutting room floor. So very much like the later Revenge Of The Cybermen release (perhaps not coincidentally the next TV outing for the Cybermen), a lot of what’s on the disc was never actually heard in the show itself. Harper achieves a great deal with very limited resources (the liner notes indicate that he never had more than five players, six if he too performed, presumably achieving a denser sound with overdubs), so it’s nice to hear his work free of the context of the show itself. It’s a pity so much of it went unused; some of the material that was left out is some of the most distinctive and enjoyable of the lot. Clearly, the Cybermen can’t have nice things.

  1. Doctor Who (new opening theme, 1967) (0:52)
  2. The Dark Side of the Moon (Music 2 Variation) (0:33)
  3. The Company (Music 7) (1:31)
  4. Hiding (Music 8) (4:54)
  5. International Electromatics Headquarters (Music 3) (0:16)
  6. Muzak (2:46)
  7. The Cyber Director (Music 5) (0:08)
  8. The Cybermen, My Allies (Music 7) (0:27)
  9. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Music 12a) (1:22)
  10. Plans for Invasion (Music 8) (1:25)
  11. Mysteries (Music 12) (1:31)
  12. Fire Escape (Music 11) (1:11)
  13. The Dark Side of the Moon (Reprise) (Music 2) (0:31)
  14. The Cybermen, My Allies (Reprise) (Music 7, looped) (1:07)
  15. Music 4 (Trapped in Gas Chamber – v. 1 & 2) (1:29)
  16. Music 9 (2:20)
  17. Music 10 (2:00)
  18. Music 13 (0:05)
  19. Music 14 (0:15)
  20. Music 15a (0:04)
  21. Music 15b (0:20)
  22. Music 15c (0:04)
  23. Music 15d (0:20)
  24. Music 15e (0:16)
  25. Music 15f (0:04)
  26. Music 15g (0:04)
  27. Music 15h (0:23)
  28. Music 16a (0:04)
  29. Music 16b (0:05)
  30. Music 16c (0:06)
  31. Music 16d (0:07)
  32. Music 16e (0:04)
  33. Music 16f (0:08)
  34. Music 16g (0:05)
  35. Part of TARDIS disappears (0:25)
  36. All of TARDIS disappears (0:24)
  37. TARDIS take off slow and painful (2:13)
  38. International Electromatics Headquarters Exterior (10:33)
  39. International Electromatics Headquarters Interior (6:26)
  40. Computer Background (0:21)
  41. Computer Whirrs (1:01)
  42. Electronic Eye (2:37)
  43. Cyber Director Appears (2:26)
  44. Cyber Director Constant (7:51)

Released by: Silva Screen Records
Release date: September 14, 2018
Total running time: 1:01:15

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1977 2020 D Doctor Who Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Doctor Who: The Sun Makers – music by Dudley Simpson

4 min read

This is a Doctor Who soundtrack release I never expected to be holding in my hands or hearing. Composer Dudley Simpson was as close as classic Doctor Who had to the kind of singular composer-in-residence that seems to be the norm for the modern series; other composers were occasionally employed at the whim of individual directors, but from 1964 through 1979, Dudley Simpson was Doctor Who’s default musical “setting”, composing for and conducting a small ensemble occasionally augmented with synthesizers by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. But despite his music gracing most of the series across that fifteen-year span, most of the original session tapes of Simpson’s Doctor Who music have been lost. The only remaining specimens, in fact, can be traced to the Radiophonic Workshop – if they added their wobbly analog synths to Simpson’s music, a copy of that was retained in their archives. And that’s where the score from The Sun Makers, a 1977 Tom Baker four-part story, comes in – it’s one of only two Simpson scores that still exist in their entirety, both of them thanks to the Workshop’s involvement. (The other, still unreleased, is 1971’s The Mind Of Evil, a Jon Pertwee adventure that was the second-ever appearance of Roger Delgado as the Master, and as such heavily feature’s Simpson’s sinister theme for that character.) To have a complete Simpson score is a gift; for that score to hail from a fondly-remembered story featuring the fourth Doctor, Leela, and K-9 toppling a regime embracing capitalism-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness is just gravy.

Tracks like “Mahogany”, which starts out with a somewhat plaintive bassoon before bringing the rest of the ensemble in to create a rich, warm harmony, exemplify what Simpson was best at. The same goes for “One Thousand Metres” and its interesting keyboard arpeggios floating over the acoustic instruments. Let’s be clear – a lot of people probably wouldn’t have chosen The Sun Makers to be one of the only complete surviving examples of Simpson’s work; they probably would’ve chosen City Of Death or Genesis Of The Daleks or a more “obvious” entry in Simpson’s canon, but The Sun Makers didn’t exactly burn itself into everyone’s memory the way those stories did. That’s actually what makes it a canny choice for a release: it’s a bit of a surprise because you probably don’t remember the score that well.

“Six Suns”, “The Others”, and “K-9, Bite!” remind me a lot of Blake’s 7, of which nearly every episode was also scored by Simpson. (The Sun Makers has a Blake’s 7 connection too – it’s where director Pennant Roberts met actor Michael Keating, giving Keating a hearty recommendation for the role of Vila.) “Subway 13” is a bit more menacing, and, at less than a minute in length, it’s a reminder some Doctor Who stories lent themselves to lengthier musical travelogues, and The Sun Makers wasn’t one of those stories. It’s comprised of shorter, punchier vignettes without the opportunity for the kind of extended musical interludes that, say, City Of Death afforded the composer. In that regard, The Sun Makers is absolutely a straight-down-the-line typical bit of Doctor Who scoring from the ’70s.

A word about the sound quality: The Sun Makers was remastered extensively by Mark Ayres, himself a Doctor Who composer of a later era (but also a die-hard Dudley Simpson fan, as he himself admitted to when he was interviewed for this site quite a few years back). Ayres is also behind the audio remastering of Doctor Who’s DVD and Blu-Ray releases, so it goes without saying 4 out of 4that this entire disc is as crisply, lovingly listenable as if the tape had just been recorded last week.

As a whole listening experience, The Sun Makers is a time capsule that may find an audience only among completist collectors, and the older generation of Doctor Who fans who were there for this story the first time around (he said, addressing the mirror). It may not appeal to everyone. But it’s a lovely little slice of the past where, rather than striving to be epic or futuristic, the sound of Doctor Who was quietly, politely going for baroque.

Order this CD

  1. Doctor Who Opening Title Theme (0:46)
  2. Death And Taxes (0:28)
  3. Mahogany (0:51)
  4. One Thousand Metres (2:12)
  5. Six Suns (1:53)
  6. The Others (1:29)
  7. Subway 13 (0:36)
  8. Subway 13 (continued) (1:07)
  9. A Heart As Big As Your Mouth (0:30)
  10. A Little Hop (0:23)
  11. Jelly Babies (0:31)
  12. Something In The Air (0:24)
  13. K-9, Bite! (0:54)
  14. Humbug (1:25)
  15. The P45 Return Route (1:08)
  16. The P45 Return Route (reprise) (0:55)
  17. Morton’s Fork (1:09)
  18. I’ve Heard That One, Too (1:05)
  19. The Rebellion Begins (0:46)
  20. Static Loop (3:20)
  21. The Steaming (1:18)
  22. The Steaming (continued) (1:10)
  23. Gentlemen, Good Luck (0:40)
  24. Nobody Works Today (2:11)
  25. The Gatherer Excised (0:43)
  26. Doctor Who Closing Title Theme (0:55)

Released by: Silva Screen Records
Release date: May 8, 2020
Total running time: 28:49

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2013 D Doctor Who Soundtracks Television

Doctor Who: The Krotons

4 min read

Order this CDA curiosity in Silva Screen’s sparse handful of classic series single-CD music releases early in 2013, this CD – weighing in at barely half an hour – is easily the most obscure entry, and the one that met with the most hoots of derision from fandom. Why The Krotons? Why not a full score for The Five Doctors or Logopolis or something more… pivotal? Why not release the best of the BBC’s Doctor Who Proms concerts on CD?

The answer is actually just this side of the obvious: the existing musical material from the 1970s could fill a teacup (and, between a couple of past releases from the BBC’s now-extinct in-house music label, almost all of it is out there already). So, instead of individual CDs showcasing Doctor Who’s sound in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, we get an example of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s musical style (the Caves Of Androzani CD), an example of the freelance composers who supplanted the Radiophonic Workshop in the show’s waning years (the re-release of Ghost Light), and an example of the Radiophonic Workshop at the height of its tape-manipulating powers in the ’60s (this one).

The Krotons is also a canny choice because it’s a rare example of a ’60s Doctor Who serial whose musical material survives intact, and is the product of a single composer’s “voice”. Radiophonic Workshop co-founder Brian Hodgson had a new experimental analog synthesizer to play wiith for The Krotons, and play with it he did, creating the story’s sparse but utterly alien music and its unearthly sound effects with the new synth and the time-tested methods of the Workshop.

Even if you’re a fan of early electronic music – say, Raymond Scott or John Baker or White Noise – you haven’t heard anything quite like this. It has rhythm and a strange sort of not-of-this-world tonality, but human ears trained in western musical traditions may not really register it as “music”. The rhythm and structure are there, but rather than traditional melody or harmony, there are strange, stacatto dronings that are right “out there” with Velvet Underground’s Metal Machine Music – the otherworldly sounds of something so unmusical by any traditional standard that it’s a challenge to stay with it long enough to discern the structure behind it.

While fans expecting more traditional musical underscore may find little to like here, especially if they’ve only been weaned on the grandiose sound of Murray Gold, what can be found here is a cross-section of the glue that held early Doctor Who together: the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s utterly strange and yet appropriate sounds, married to the sometimes less-than-special effects concocted by the BBC’s in-house effects artists (and 3 out of 4occasional outside contractors who, nevertheless, had only a BBC budget within which to work). Back then, there was no surround sound or CGI to hold the show together – only offbeat scripts, usually better-than-decent performances, and unusual worlds which were just as often sold by sound as by sight. That tradition continued well into the 1970s, even after the BBC realized that its sci-fi output was now competing with the likes of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica (the original, mind you), and it’s a big part of the appeal to many an older fan. Whether it registers as “musical” or not, The Krotons soundtrack is a nice example of the artistry and technical wizardry behind that appeal.

  1. Doctor Who (New Opening Theme, 1967) (0:55)
  2. The Learning Hall (2:43)
  3. Door Opens (0:39)
  4. Entry Into the Machine (1:36)
  5. TARDIS (New Landing) (0:21)
  6. Wasteland Atmosphere (1:26)
  7. Machine and City Theme (1:52)
  8. Machine Exterior (1:46)
  9. Panels Open (0:20)
  10. Dispersal Unit (0:43)
  11. Sting (0:22)
  12. Selris’ House (0:44)
  13. Machine Interior (1:19)
  14. Snake Bleeps Low (1:04)
  15. Silver Hose (The Snake) (0:48)
  16. Snake Bleeps High (0:33)
  17. Teaching Machine Hums (0:46)
  18. Forcefield (0:50)
  19. Burning Light (1:08)
  20. Birth of a Kroton (1:14)
  21. Kroton Theme (2:16)
  22. Kroton Dies (0:37)
  23. Link – Rising Hum (2:07)
  24. Kroton Dies (Alternative) (0:19)

Released by: Silva Screen
Release date: 2013
Total running time: 26:28

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2013 D Doctor Who Soundtracks Television

Doctor Who: The 50th Anniversary Collection

13 min read

25 years ago, if someone had been asking for a go-to album for casual fans of the Doctor Who theme tune and its accompanying incidental music, I would have somewhat reluctantly pointed them toward the Doctor Who 25th Anniversary Album on BBC Records; reluctantly on the grounds that while it did indeed include the major iterations of the theme tune, its incidental music was drawn entirely from Sylvester McCoy’s first two seasons, largely scored by Keff McCulloch with very ’80s hand clap samples for percussion backing his very ’80s synths. It was a nice enough sound for its time, but not one that has dated very well. In 1993, for the show’s 30th anniversary, the default selection became the BBC’s 30 Years At The Radiophonic Workshop, which I’d recommend with a different set of reservations: most of its tracks were pure sound effects. Very evocative ones, to be sure, the pride of the BBC’s sonic skunkworks at Maida Vale, but little of the 30th anniversary album was actually music.

We had to reach the show’s 50th anniversary to strike the right balance at last. The four-disc Doctor Who: The 50th Anniversary Collection is an unapologetic romp through the tunes accompanying the TARDIS’ travels from 1963 through 2013. If a single show’s sound has evolved more radically over time (without it being a variety show with an ever-changing selection of musical guests), I’d love to hear about it. In five decades, Doctor Who has gone from experimental-going-on-avant-garde analog electronic music, to small orchestral ensembles, to tuneful (and sometimes showy) ’80s synthesizers, and then to full-on orchestral grandeur. That journey is sampled at various points across four CDs here. (A limited edition of 1,000 copies of a more expansive – and, undoubtedly, expensive – 11-CD set will be available in early 2014; Silva has already fessed up that this 4-CD set is a sampling of that larger collection, without giving any indication as to whether the material will be available separately on individual CDs, iTunes, or what have you.)

For those who faithfully bought Silva Screen’s ’90s CD releases of Mark Ayres’ late ’80s scores and the label’s reissues of classic BBC albums, as well as the BBC’s own attempt to fill out the Doctor Who soundtrack library in the early 21st century, there will be a lot of familiar material here, sometimes only in briefly excerpted form. Ayres’ scores, and familiar material such as “March Of The Cybermen” and music from Tom Baker’s last season, can be found here as edited highlights, as can already-released ’60s and ’70s gems such as excerpts from the now-hard-to-find-on-CD-without-getting-a-second-mortgage CD featuring Tristram Cary’s music from the second-ever Doctor Who story, The Daleks. Ayres was the archivist responsible for picking out the best bits from the classic series, and his choices line up almost exactly what what I would have picked. (Note: almost. Leaving the music accompanying the Brigadier’s flashback out of a Mawdryn Undead suite is an unexpected choice, to say the least.)

But there are many surprises as well. The sheer amount of pristine, not-smothered-in-sound-effects Dudley Simpson music to be heard is impressive. For decades, short of Silva Screen’s singular experimental attempt in the 1990s to do a Simpson “cover album” with the best synthesizers and samples available at the time, almost none of Simpson’s music has been available, despite the fact that he remains the reigning champion among Doctor Who composers (having scored episodes from 1964 through 1979). Copies of Simpson’s music simply were not retained, for who knew that it would ever be in demand as a standalone product? But thanks to Simpson’s occasional collaborations with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – a group which did a better job of archiving, and occasionally had to add synthesizer overdubs to Simpson’s more otherworldly cues – some selections of Simpson’s unique small-ensemble sound now survive. A few other Simpson specimens are culled from scenes in which the music was virtually the only sound in the mix (such as the music from the Patrick Troughton story The Seeds Of Death). This brings us such wonderful lost treats as the suite from 1977’s The Invasion Of Time, a selection of music which reminds me of Blake’s 7 as much as it does Doctor Who, and concludes with a great “slimy” synth motif for the Sontarans, a piece of music that screams “short, squat and ugly”. Other unearthed Simpson gems include music from The Android Invasion, the aforementioned Seeds Of Death, and the Pertwee space opera Frontier In Space. There are surprises from the small stable of other composers who scored the Doctor’s travels in the ’70s, including Carey Blyton’s stuttering stacatto saxophones from Death To The Daleks and his more traditional “Simpsonesque” strains from Revenge Of The Cybermen.

Another surprise heard here is a handful of stock library music pieces used during the 1960s, from the first piece of music ever heard within an episode of Doctor Who (on Susan’s portable radio, no less) to the familiar and oft-reused action cues that accompanied Cybermen and Yeti in equal measure. Many of these pieces have surfaced over the years, in such forms as the fan-compiled Space Adventures CD and short-lived one-off CDs timed to coincide with the releases of such things as The Tenth Planet and Tomb Of The Cybermen. But this is the first time than an officially sanctioned BBC release has declared these to be the Doctor Who music that the fans have always known them to be. The inclusion of a piece by Les Structures Sonores (used in the Hartnell four-parter Galaxy Four) is historically significant: when trying to describe the sound she wanted for Doctor Who’s still-unwritten theme tune, producer Verity Lambert fell back on the work of Les Structures Sonores as a suggested listen. (What actually emerged was wonderfully different from that suggestion, but however your tastes run regarding the show’s stories main theme, every major iteration is included here for your listening pleasure.)

The ’80s, the final decade of original Doctor Who, present a different problem: nearly everything survives from that era, so it becames a question of judiciously picking what to leave out. The major pieces that everyone would wish for are present, however: Tom Baker’s swan song from Logopolis, the thematic bookend of Peter Davison’s first trip in the TARDIS in Castrovalva, Earthshock‘s “March Of The Cybermen”, The Five Doctors, the percussive Sontaran march and the flamenco-style acoustic guitar work of The Two Doctors, edited highlights from three of the four stories making up The Trial Of A Time Lord, and the final moments of music from the original series in 1989’s memorable (and perfectly scored) Survival, which demonstrated that the show’s decade of synths was on the cusp of giving way to a more interesting mix of synth, guitar and live violin if the story demanded it.

Things then transform dramatically. For the first time outside of a 1990s “composer promo” release of questionable legality, selections from the Hollywood-spawned score of 1996’s Paul McGann TV movie come in from the cold on an official Doctor Who soundtrack compilation. Not much more than a taster, to be sure, and yes, the entire score’s been available as the music-only audio track on the DVD of that movie for about a decade now, but it’s nice to see this release taking in the entirety of the franchise’s musical history (with one major omission – more on this in a moment). From here, we jump to an extended best-of from Murray Gold’s reign as the sole musical voice of modern Doctor Who, covering everything from Rose’s theme through The Rings Of Akhaten. As much as some fans have only ever grown up with Murray Gold’s bombastic orchestral music as the sound of Doctor Who, it’s impressive that Silva Screen managed to constrain the new series highlights to a single disc.

But considering that, before the track listing was announced, I fully expected much of this set to be tilted in favor of the new series, the 50th Anniversary Collection is a pleasant surprise from start to finish. Fans weaned on the David Tennant years may be shocked to discover how much the “house style” of Doctor Who has changed, but those of us who grew up with Tom Baker or his predecessors will find much to love here. Yes, the first disc has a lot of sound effects on it, but they’re almost music in their own unique way – the sound of the living, breathing alien worlds found in Lime Grove Studio “D” so many years ago. And I never thought we’d get, on CD, such music as Don Harper’s sinister spy-movie-inspired strains from The Invasion, or the Dudley Simpson tracks that we have here.

I’m a little surprised to see that the two 1960s movies starring the late Peter Cushing as quirky but perfectly human inventor Dr. Who are not represented here. Silva released all of the available score material from both of those movies in their entirety some time back, so they have access to (and rights to) the recordings. I suppose they get excluded for not being part 4 out of 4
of the TV franchise, but if there was any concern that the ’60s-centric CD had too many sound effects, I wonder why these tracks weren’t considered for inclusion. With every passing year, Cushing’s brief tenure as the TARDIS traveler grows more obscure, so I suspect I’m alone in thinking there should have been some hint of the movies here.

The 50th Anniversary Collection is a dandy sampling of the Doctor’s ever-evolving musical accompaniment over the years.

Order this CDDisc One

  1. Doctor Who (Original Theme) (2:20)
  2. An Unearthly Child: Three Guitars Mood 2 (2:03)
  3. An Unearthly Child – TARDIS Takeoff (0:49)
  4. The Daleks (The Dead Planet): Forest Atmosphere (1:07)
  5. The Daleks (The Dead Planet): Forest With Creature (0:54)
  6. The Daleks (The Dead Planet): City Music 1 and 2 (0:56)
  7. The Daleks (The Dead Planet): The Daleks (0:32)
  8. The Daleks (The Survivors) – Dalek Control Room (0:34)
  9. The Daleks (The Ambush): The Ambush (2:00)
  10. The Daleks – Capsule Oscillation (Dalek Destructor Fuse / Bomb Countdown) (0:19)
  11. The Edge of Destruction – Explosion, TARDIS Stops (1:10)
  12. The Keys of Marinus – Sleeping Machine (0:52)
  13. The Chase – Dalek Spaceship Lands (0:17)
  14. The Chase – TARDIS Lands (0:11)
  15. Galaxy Four – Chumbley (Constant Run) (0:27)
  16. Galaxy Four – Chumbley at Rest (0:28)
  17. Galaxy Four: Marche (Les Structures Sonores) (2:40)
  18. The Daleks’ Master Plan (The Nightmare Begins): A Strange Sickness (0:44)
  19. The Daleks’ Master Plan (Destruction of Time): Growing Menace (2:08)
  20. The Gunfighters: Excerpts from ‘The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon’ (3:51)
  21. The Tenth Planet: Space Adventure Part 2 (1:21)
  22. The Macra Terror – Heartbeat Chase (1:57)
  23. The Macra Terror – Chromophone Band (1:56)
  24. The Macra Terror – Propaganda Sleep Machine (1:08)
  25. The Tomb of the Cybermen – Sideral Universe (2:26)
  26. The Tomb of the Cybermen – Space Time Music Part 1 (1:21)
  27. The Web of Fear – Space Time Music Part 2 (1:19)
  28. Fury from the Deep – Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill (Incidental Music) (0:39)
  29. The Wheel in Space – Cyberman Stab & Music (1:32)
  30. The Wheel in Space – Birth of Cybermats (0:44)
  31. The Wheel in Space – Interior Rocket (Suspense Music) (1:55)
  32. The Dominators – Galaxy Atmosphere (1:04)
  33. The Mind Robber – Zoe’s Theme (1:20)
  34. The Invasion: The Dark Side of the Moon (0:31)
  35. The Invasion: The Company (1:31)
  36. The Krotons – Machine and City Theme (1:49)
  37. The Krotons – Kroton Theme (2:14)
  38. The Seeds of Death: Titles (0:35)
  39. The Seeds of Death: Ice Warriors Music (0:26)
  40. The War Games – Time Lord Court (1:32)
  41. Doctor Who (New Opening, 1967 – full version) (2:20)
  42. The Mind of Evil: The Master’s Theme (0:43)
  43. The Mind of Evil: Hypnosis Music (0:36)
  44. The Mind of Evil: Dover Castle (0:29)
  45. The Mind of Evil – Keller Machine Appears and Vanishes (0:22)
  46. The Mind of Evil: Keller Machine Theme (0:43)
  47. The Claws of Axos – Copy machine tickover (0:16)
  48. The Claws of Axos: The Axons Approach (1:45)
  49. Music from ‘The Sea Devils’ (5:24)
  50. Music from ‘The Mutants’ (7:12)
  51. Music from ‘Frontier in Space’ Episode 1 (1:46)
  52. Music from ‘Death to the Daleks’ (3:50)
  53. Planet of the Spiders – Metebelis III Atmosphere (1:53)

Disc Two

  1. Doctor Who Opening Title Theme (0:44)
  2. The Ark In Space – Nerva Beacon Infrastructure and TMat Couch (1:42)
  3. Music from “Revenge of the Cybermen” (5:28)
  4. Terror of the Zygons: The Destruction of Charlie Rig (0:42)
  5. Terror of the Zygons: A Landing in Scotland (1:22)
  6. Terror of the Zygons: The Zygons Attack (0:51)
  7. Music from “The Android Invasion” Episodes 3 and 4 (6:32)
  8. The Brain of Morbius – The Planet Karn (1:50)
  9. The Seeds of Doom: Antarctica – The First Pod (2:17)
  10. The Seeds of Doom: Get Dunbar! / Krynoid On The Loose (2:55)
  11. The Masque of Mandragora – The Mandragora Helix (1:26)
  12. Music from “The Invasion of Time” Episodes 3 and 4 (5:36)
  13. Doctor Who Closing Titles (40? Version) (1:15)
  14. Doctor Who 1980 (Opening Titles) (0:38)
  15. The Leisure Hive: Into Argolis (1:44)
  16. Full Circle: K9 on a Mission (0:35)
  17. The Keeper of Traken: Nyssa’s Theme (0:41)
  18. Logopolis: It’s The End… (3:18)
  19. Doctor Who 1980 (Closing Titles) (1:16)
  20. Castrovalva (3:18)
  21. Four to Doomsday: Exploring the Lab (1:46)
  22. Earthshock – March Of The Cybermen (5:13)
  23. Mawdryn Undead (4:19)
  24. The Five Doctors (5:29)
  25. Warriors of the Deep (3:53)
  26. Resurrection of the Daleks (5:01)
  27. The Caves of Androzani (Alternative Suite) (6:07)
  28. Doctor Who Theme (1980 – Full Version) (2:42)

Disc Three

  1. The Twin Dilemma (4:04)
  2. The Mark of the Rani (3:45)
  3. The Two Doctors (3:15)
  4. Timelash (5:51)
  5. Revelation of the Daleks (3:53)
  6. Doctor Who 1986 (2:53)
  7. The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet (3:21)
  8. The Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids (2:44)
  9. The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe (3:16)
  10. Doctor Who 1987 2:38()
  11. Music from ‘Time and the Rani’ (1:38)
  12. Delta and the Bannermen: “Here’s to the Future” (1:57)
  13. Music from ‘Dragonfire’ (3:02)
  14. Music from ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ (5:32)
  15. Music from ‘The Greatest Show in the Galaxy’ (3:23)
  16. Music from ‘Battlefield’ (4:41)
  17. Music from ‘The Curse of Fenric’ (6:35)
  18. Music from ‘Survival’ (5:28)
  19. “…and somewhere else, the tea’s getting cold” (from ”Survival”) (0:24)
  20. Prologue: Skaro / “Doctor Who” Theme (1:34)
  21. “Who Am I?” (1:55)
  22. The Chase (Original Version) (2:20)
  23. “Open the Eye” (2:25)
  24. Farewell (1:35)
  25. End Credits / “Doctor Who” Theme (0:49)

Disc Four

  1. Doctor Who Theme – TV Version (0:42)
  2. Doctor Who: Series 1 – Rose’s Theme (2:15)
  3. Doctor Who: Series 2 – Doomsday (5:08)
  4. Doctor Who: Series 3 – All The Strange Strange Creatures (The Trailer Music) (4:07)
  5. Doctor Who: Series 3 – Martha’s Theme (3:42)
  6. Doctor Who: Series 3 – Boe (3:44)
  7. Doctor Who: Series 3 – The Doctor Forever (4:19)
  8. Doctor Who: Series 3 – This Is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home (3:18)
  9. Doctor Who: Series 3 – Donna’s Theme (3:16)
  10. Doctor Who: Series 4 – Song Of Freedom (2:51)
  11. Doctor Who: Series 4-The Specials – The Master Suite (4:33)
  12. Doctor Who: Series 4-The Specials – Four Knocks (3:58)
  13. Doctor Who: Series 4-The Specials – Vale Decem (3:20)
  14. Doctor Who: Series 5 – I Am The Doctor (4:03)
  15. Doctor Who: Series 5 – The Mad Man With A Box (2:09)
  16. Doctor Who: Series 5 – Amy’s Theme (2:08)
  17. Doctor Who: Series 6 – Melody Pond (4:43)
  18. Doctor Who: Series 6 – The Wedding Of River Song (2:36)
  19. Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol – Abigail’s Song (Silence Is All You Know) (5:33)
  20. Doctor Who: Series 7 – Towards The Asylum (2:25)
  21. Doctor Who: Series 7 – Together Or Not At All – The Song Of Amy And Rory (3:17)
  22. Doctor Who: Series 7 – Up The Shard (3:02)
  23. Doctor Who: Series 7 – The Long Song (3:39)

Released by: Silva Screen
Release date: 2013
Disc one total running time: 79:01
Disc two total running time: 78:40
Disc three total running time: 78:58
Disc four total running time: 78:48

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Categories
1969 Artists (by group or surname) Non-Soundtrack Music W White Noise

White Noise – An Electric Storm

4 min read

An Electric Storm is the adventurous debut album by a British outfit called White Noise. Even if the group is new to you, its members are familiar names: White Noise was a collaboration between electronic musician David Vorhaus and BBC Radiophonic Workshop members Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire, doing a little bit of work on the side. Originally, White Noise set out to record a single only: two songs. Island Records insisted on an entire album of material… and unfortunately, that’s where it started to go downhill, rapidly.

An Electric Storm starts out promisingly enough, putting the two most interesting numbers up front. “Love Without Sound” and “My Game Of Loving” were the A and B sides of the originally planned single, showing off the concept behind White Noise very well: to apply the working methods of the Radiophonic Workshop to something that was intended, from the outset, to be a pop song or two. Even these two songs aren’t without issues, however. “Love Without Sound” has a fantastic, mysterious feel, with vocals that anticipate the singing style of the new wave and new romantic genres by a good ten years, and “My Game Of Loving” isn’t bad either, with almost Brian-Wilson-esque vocals.

But both songs become novelty tunes with the addition of intrusive laughter on the former and orgasmic moaning on the latter. The “instrumental” backgrounds – and I used that term loosely since, as with Derbyshire’s famous version of the Doctor Who theme, few traditional instruments were used – are intriguing. Any album with Derbyshire and Hodgson involved would have been spectacularly well-produced at the very least.

Though I’m not as fond of the music, this leaves the relatively uncluttered “Firebird” and “Your Hidden Dreams” as the gems of this album. “Here Come The Fleas” takes things firmly into novelty song territory.

The last two tracks on An Electric Storm are wanna-be epics that wind up weighing the whole endeavour down. “The Visitations” clocks in at over ten minutes, and few of those minutes stand out as interesting music, while “The Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell” is a noise montage with track after track of overdubbed screams, resulting in a piece that, quite frankly, I’d be happy never to hear again. Legend has it that the trio cranked out the two longest tracks in the shortest amount of studio time simply to fulfill Island’s demands for a full album. An Electric Storm in hell, indeed: it’s almost as if the group made a deal with the devil and was in a hurry to get out of it.

To be blunt, An Electric Storm is really the A and B sides of two decent, if trippy, singles, and a further collection of filler material that’s not worth the time (and keep in mind, very few times in theLogBook.com’s Music Reviews has it ever been said that anything’s not worth at least one listen for curiosity’s sake). There would’ve been no honor lost in just doing a four-song EP – and my opinion of this collection minus the three filler songs would’ve been 2 out of 4raised considerably. White Noise actually continues to this day, having released an album each decade since An Electric Storm, though most of the “group”‘s output since this album has been Vorhaus on his own; Derbyshire and Hodgson went their own way following this album. It’s a pioneering piece of electronic pop music, but the artistic achievement isn’t quite on par with the technical prowess on display.

Order this CD

  1. Love Without Sound (3:07)
  2. My Game Of Loving (4:10)
  3. Here Come The Fleas (2:15)
  4. Firebird (3:05)
  5. Your Hidden Dreams (4:58)
  6. The Visitations (11:14)
  7. The Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell (7:22)

Released by: Island Records
Release date: 1969
Total running time: 36:11

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1994 D Doctor Who Soundtracks Television

The Worlds Of Doctor Who

4 min read

The last hurrah for Silva Screen’s license to release Doctor Who music on CD in the 1990s, Worlds Of Doctor Who largely consists of music you’ve heard before if you’ve heard the same label’s other Doctor Who output, give or take a surprise or two.

The album opens and closes with two new versions of the famous theme music, the “Lightning Version” at the beginning and the lively “Spoons Version” at the end. As you might’ve guessed, the latter rendition of the theme is practically built around a guest performance on the spoons by Sylvester McCoy himself; it’s an interesting novelty, right up there with Jon Pertwee’s “I Am The Doctor”, but not much more than that. Both of these new arrangements wouldn’t have been out of place on the Variations On A Theme EP.

After the “Lightning Version”, things proceed very much along the lines of Silva’s original Earthshock compilation CD, providing classic clips arranged more or less chronologically, starting with the original BBC 45 version of the 1960s theme tune and then going straight into the Dudley Simpson single “The World Of Doctor Who” (built around music from the 1971 Pertwee adventure The Mind Of Evil). Selections from The Sea Devils and several Tom Baker adventures follow, the latter material coming from Heathcliff Blair’s Pyramids Of Mars re-recordings of classic Simpson scores from that era. At least some canny choices were made here to present the most listenable and accessible material.

After the 1980 Doctor Who theme arranged by Peter Howell, we segue into the more modern, synth-heavy sound of the Davison era; again, the material heard here has been heard before (not just on previous Silva Doctor Who soundtrack compilations, but on the 1980s BBC LP releases that those compilations drew from). To vary things up a bit, material that isn’t necessarily strictly from Doctor Who begins sneaking into the playlist during the 80s section, including Mark Ayres’ theme for the Myth Makers interview videos. This material, too, has been presented before by Silva, on Ayres’ Myths And Other Legends solo release.

Things get a bit more interesting with the suites of Ayres’ music from the last two seasons of the original series. The material has been heard before, but here it’s edited into three eight-minute-or-longer suites (one each for The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, Ghost Light and The Curse Of Fenric) where, again, the best material is brought to the fore. Those three episode scores have also been released in their entirety by Silva, but Ayres picked out his own best material (and it has to be said that I agree with him just about 100% on the selections he made for the suites) and put it all into a single track per episode. No new interstitial material tries to introduce cohesion to the suites; there are stops, starts and pauses between individual cues, but nothing too jarring.

Things are capped off with the first CD release of Ayres’ “Return To Devils’ End” suite, composed for a documentary video of the same name which reunited the cast and crew of the Pertwee-era classic story The Daemons at the original shooting locations. A true Dudley Simpson afficionado, Ayres creates an even better homage to “the Simpson sound” here than Heathcliff Blair managed with the original Simpson sheet music. The “Spoons Version” of the theme music wraps things up.

3 out of 4If you’re wondering about the music from Shakedown: Return Of The Sontarans and Downtime, two of the better fan-produced video drama spinoffs of the 90s, both of those projects’ scores were released in their entirety on Silva CDs as well, but not until after this CD’s release.

It’s a nice sampler CD of Doctor Who soundtrack cues, with a smidgeon of new (but hardly canonical) material, so there are worse ways for Silva Screen to have closed out their Who catalog.

Order this CD

  1. Doctor Who (Lightning Version) (5:17)
  2. TARDIS – Doctor Who (2:37)
  3. The World Of Doctor Who (2:39)
  4. The Sea Devils (3:19)
  5. The Ark In Space (0:50)
  6. Pyramids Of Mars (3:59)
  7. The Brain Of Morbius (3:11)
  8. Doctor Who Theme: 1980-85 (2:37)
  9. Meglos (1:32)
  10. The Five Doctors (5:24)
  11. The Caves Of Androzani (6:07)
  12. Myth Makers Theme (2:11)
  13. Doctor Who (Terror Version) (4:16)
  14. Terror In Totters Lane (1:55)
  15. The Greatest Show In The Galaxy (8:31)
  16. Ghost Light (8:05)
  17. The Curse Of Fenric (8:57)
  18. Return To Devils’ End (2:51)
  19. Doctor Who (Spoon Version) (4:27)

Released by: Silva Screen
Release date: 1994
Total running time: 78:45

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2000 D Doctor Who Non-Soundtrack Music Tribute / Reinterpretation W

Who Is Dr. Who?

4 min read

Order this CDA release that screams “diehard completists only!” at the top of its lungs, this collection of Doctor Who-inspired novelty tunes and singles spans the years 1963-1973.

The singles tracked down and remastered by Doctor Who sound guru Mark Ayres for inclusion here cover the entire spectrum, from interesting (Jon Pertwee and Frazer Hines’ amusing takes on the phenomenon), to things that make you wonder why anyone bothered (Roberta Tovey’s attempt to cash-in on her appearance in the two Peter Cushing films of the 1960s, along with several standard-issue guitar rock tracks whose only tie-ins seem to be including the word “Dalek” in their titles), to truly cringe-worthy (the infamous Eric Winstone rendition of the Doctor Who theme tune, and the even more infamous “I’m Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek”). You really have to have a taste for nostalgia – some of it in the worst musical taste you can possibly imagine – to stomach this CD.

The aforementioned tracks by Pertwee (the third Doctor himself) and Hines (who played the second Doctor’s Scottish sidekick Jamie) are actually rather good; Pertwee’s single – performed and produced by former Deep Purple members to the tune of the series theme song – probably sticks the closest to the spirit of the show (the unrelated B-side leaves a little to be desired, save as a reminder of the unmistakable voice of the late, great Mr. Pertwee). Hines’ singles, sadly enough, may be the most musically valid (which ain’t sayin’ much in this case), with some light touches of psychedelia.

I suppose the album would’ve had a gaping hole if “I’m Gonna Spend A Christmas With A Dalek” had been omitted. This shameless cash-in by a band called the Go Gos (years before Belinda Carlisle’s group of the same name, of course) features a lead vocal performed much in the same style as “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”. Those very teeth will be grating as you listen to this particular track. You should listen to it at least once, just to say you did.

The late Don Harper’s wild, almost retro-loungue-style cover of the theme song is another peak of weirdness in the proceedings. Every once in a while, he hits the notes right. Just for sheer strangeness, it bears at least one listening.

Some hidden treats come in the form of “The Eccentric Dr. Who”, “Daleks And Thals” and “Fugue For Thought”, single arrangements of themes and incidental music from the two 1960s Doctor Who theatrical films which starred Peter Cushing and Roberta Tovey. These are likely to be the only time you’ll ever hear anything even approaching soundtracks from those two movies. Tovey’s own cash-in singles are adorable or annoying, depending upon your mood at the time.

Overall, a choice pick for those who, like myself, absolutely have to hear everything ever recorded in connection to the BBC’s longest running science fiction series. But not even all the fans will necessarily dig this musical trip back in time. If the hinted-at second volume of novelty tunes does happen, it may have some 2 out of 4more accessible material – some understanding of the historical context of these songs, both within the framework of Doctor Who’s history on TV and and within the musical trends of the mid-1960s, is probably required to enjoy them. Extensive liner notes offer lots of that information, but it will ultimately be up to the tastes of individual listeners.

  1. Doctor Who Theme – BBC Radiophonic Workshop (2:22)
  2. Dr. Who – Eric Winstone and his Orchestra (3:10)
  3. I’m Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek – The Go Go’s (2:28)
  4. Landing Of The Daleks – The Earthlings (2:47)
  5. March Of The Robots – The Earthlings (2:12)
  6. Dance Of The Daleks – Jack Dorsey and his Orchestra (2:33)
  7. Who’s Who – Roberta Tovey (2:28)
  8. Not So Old – Roberta Tovey (2:48)
  9. The Eccentric Dr. Who – Malcolm Lockyer Orchestra (2:25)
  10. Daleks And Thals – Malcolm Lockyer Orchestra (2:09)
  11. Fugue For Thought – Bill McGuffie (2:14)
  12. Who’s Dr. Who? – Frazer Hines (3:08)
  13. Punch And Judy Man – Frazer Hines (2:22)
  14. Who Is The Doctor – Jon Pertwee (2:23)
  15. Pure Mystery – Jon Pertwee (3:16)
  16. Dr. Who – Don Harper’s Homo Electronicus (4:19)
  17. Landing Of The Daleks (alternate version) – The Earthlings (2:43)
  18. Time Traveller – Frazer Hines (2:34)

Released by: RPM Records
Release date: 2000
Total running time: 48:21

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2000 D Doctor Who Soundtracks Television

Doctor Who, Volume 2: New Beginnings 1970-1979

4 min read

Order this CDThis selection of freshly unearthed, newly remastered music and sound effects from the 1970s, arguably Doctor Who’s heyday with the role being played by Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker (the two longest-serving actors in the part), is quite an interesting listen.

Central to this lengthy CD is a suite of cues from Malcolm Clarke’s score for the 1972 six-parter The Sea Devils, which had previously been represented on an earlier Silva Screen collection by a track of “edited highlights.” Clarke’s abstract electronic music, in fourteen tracks of its full glory, will likely still be inaccessible to many listeners. This is electronic music at its most abstract and challenging. Mark Ayres’ liner notes aren’t kidding when they cite Clarke’s Sea Devils score as “undoubtedly some of the most uncompromising electronic music ever to feature in mainstream popular entertaiment.” In places, the music sounds more like sound effects gone berzerk, and yet in other places, there are clear, tonal ideas being explored. To be honest, I’m actually able to grok the Sea Devils music more now than I did when I first watched the six-parter from which the music originated.

Other gems include some previously unreleased Dudley Simpson cues from The Mind Of Evil and The Claws Of Axos; though Simpson was a freelance composer, he did experiment with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s capabilities early in the 1970s. A brief selection of sound effects, none of which – thankfully – were previously released in 1993 as part of 30 Years at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, draws material from the period between Jon Pertwee’s last season as the Doctor and Tom Baker’s penultimate year in the part.

The real Holy Grail of this whole endeavour comes in the form of two tracks toward the end of the CD. These never-before-heard cues by Peter Howell, who composed many of the better Radiophonic Workshop scores for Doctor Who in the 1980s, were part of a demo recorded to scenes of a 1979 episode to demonstrate to the series’ then-new producer John Nathan-Turner that the Radiophonic Workshop was up to the task of scoring entire episodes in addition to providing sound effects.

Also included is the pre-requisite selection of different versions of the theme music, including the 1970 “stutter-start” edit (which, truth be told, I’ve always rather liked), the infamous “Delaware” version, and other minor variations.

3 out of 4Is this second volume of the Radiophonic Workshop series worth picking up? Well…maybe. I like it, but the Sea Devils suite may be musical anathaema to those with more traditional tastes, and since that is what takes up most of Volume Two, that will probably determine whether or not you care to shell out your hard-earned money to buy it.

  1. Music: Doctor Who (opening title theme, 1970) (0:46)
  2. FX: Tardis control on & warp transfer (0:22)
  3. Blue Veils & Golden Sands (3:25)
  4. The Delian Mode (3:33)
  5. The Master’s Theme (0:43)
  6. Dover Castle (0:39)
  7. FX: Keller Machine appears/vanishes (0:23)
  8. Keller Machine Theme (0:42)
  9. FX: Brain centre atmosphere (0:21)
  10. The Axons Approach (1:45)
  11. TARDIS lands (0:22)
  12. Doctor Who (closing title theme, 1970 (1:13)
  13. The Prison (1:19)
  14. The Master (2:05)
  15. The Naval Base (1:28)
  16. The Sea Fort (2:13)
  17. Stranded (2:39)
  18. The Sea Devil (2:43)
  19. The Master At Large (3:04)
  20. Air Conditioning Problem (0:48)
  21. Duel (1:44)
  22. The Master’s Plan (1:31)
  23. The Submarine (1:52)
  24. Jo Frees The Doctor (1:11)
  25. Rock Bottom (1:15)
  26. The Beach (1:57)
  27. The Minefield (0:23)
  28. Devil Underwater (1:18)
  29. The Doctor And Jo On The Run (0:35)
  30. The Sea Devils Take The Prison (3:24)
  31. The Diving Bell (1:23)
  32. Mr. Walker’s War (3:05)
  33. Torpedo (1:28)
  34. Attack In Force (2:02)
  35. Ventilation Shaft (1:20)
  36. Sea Chase (2:06)
  37. Escape (0:46)
  38. Doctor Who (stereo version, 1972) (2:21)
  39. Doctor Who (Delaware version, 1972) (2:08)
  40. FX: Aggedor’s temple atmosphere, Peladon (0:59)
  41. FX: Metebelis 3 atmosphere (1:51)
  42. FX: Nerva Beacon infrastructure & T-Mat couch (1:42)
  43. FX: The Planet Karn (1:49)
  44. FX: The Shrine of the Sisterhood of Karn (1:13)
  45. FX: The Mandragora Helix (0:46)
  46. FX: Nova Device Countdown & Explosion (0:12)
  47. Demo 1 (1:13)
  48. Demo 2 (1:07)
  49. Doctor Who (new theme, 1980) (2:42)

Released by: BBC Music
Release date: 2000
Total running time: 78:19

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2000 D Doctor Who Soundtracks Television

Doctor Who, Volume 1: The Early Years 1963-1969

4 min read

Order this CDThe second title in the BBC’s series of remastered sound effects and music compilations is impressive in its scope, even though it leans much more heavily in the direction of effects than it does music.

The musical selections on Early Years are limited primarily to the various minor revamps of the ubiquitous Doctor Who theme, as well as a handful of fleeting cues from several other episodes – many of which, surprisingly, are considered “lost” shows, their videotape masters having disappeared from the BBC’s archives. The sound effects accompanying the show’s first-ever regeneration – in which the role of the Doctor is handed to a new actor by the incumbent Doctor in a metamorphosis sequence – is among the biggest of these surprises (and makes me pine even more for BBC Video’s upcoming home video release of The Tenth Planet, the four-parter from which those effects originate, even if its all-important fourth episode will basically by a slide show on tape).

Perhaps the coolest piece of music is “Time In Advance” by BBC Radiophonic Workshop veteran John Baker. This cue, which actually originated with another show but was tracked as background source music in at least two Doctor Who episodes, is heard in two forms: its original ethereal form, and an unbelievable combination of the original cue and a light jazzy piano accompaniment overdubbed. The latter of these is gorgeous even by modern standards, and makes me want to hear more. It’s tragically brief.

As for the sound effects, many of the sounds heard here did not appear on the excellent 1993 30 Years At The Radiophonic Workshop compilation – such as the distinctive “Dalek Control Room” effects which were used in nearly every Dalek-related adventure from 1963 to 1988 – making this one a worthwhile investment for vintage FX buffs.

Given the CD’s heavy emphasis on effects, I can recommend this safely for rabid Doctor Who enthusiasts…but what about casual fans? Unless you’re that intrigued by the theme arrangements and various incidental music snippets I’ve discussed here, I’d pass on it, were I you. But for Doctor Who completists, this is a promising preview of how the Beeb plans on handling future music releases related to the Time Lord’s twenty-seven years on television.

  1. Music: Doctor Who (original theme) (2:21)
  2. TARDIS exterior hum and door (0:23)
  3. Entry into the TARDIS (0:40)
  4. TARDIS original takeoff sequence (1:47)
  5. Music: Doctor Who (original title music) (2:09)
  6. TARDIS takeoff (1:23)
  7. Skaro: petrified forest atmosphere (1:46)
  8. TARDIS computer (1:08)
  9. Dalek city corridor (1:01)
  10. Dalek control room (0:26)
  11. Capsule oscillation (0:19)
  12. Explosion; TARDIS stops (1:10)
  13. Sleeping Machine (0:52)
  14. Sensorite speech background (1:10)
  15. Dalek spaceship lands (0:16)
  16. TARDIS lands (0:11)
  17. Chumbley constant run (0:27)
  18. Chumbley at rest (0:28)
  19. Chumbley sends message (0:07)
  20. Chumbley dome (0:19)
  21. Chumbley dies (0:11)
  22. Activity on Dalek ship control panel (0:46)
  23. Energy escapes (0:22)
  24. Machinery in TARDIS goes wild: regeneration (1:03)
  25. Regeneration runs down (0:09)
  26. The Doctor’s transitional trauma (0:52)
  27. Music: The Fish People (0:37)
  28. Heartbeat Chase (1:57)
  29. Music: Chromophone Band (1:56)
  30. Controller chimes (0:10)
  31. Music: Time In Advance (3:19)
  32. Propaganda sleep machine (1:08)
  33. Music: Doctor Who new opening theme, 1967 (0:51)
  34. Sting & web / cobweb pulsates (2:04)
  35. 4 stings (0:18)
  36. Music: Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill (0:39)
  37. Lead-in to Cyber Planner (0:14)
  38. Cyber Planner background (0:37)
  39. Music: Cyberman stab and music (1:32)
  40. Rocket stab (0:08)
  41. Birth of Cybermats (0:44)
  42. Cybermats attracted to Wheel (0:39)
  43. Rocket in space (1:49)
  44. Music: Interior rocket (suspense music) (1:55)
  45. Music: Servo Robot music (1:28)
  46. Wheel stab (0:14)
  47. Cosmos atmosphere (1:08)
  48. Music: Alien ship music (1:00)
  49. Jarvis in a dream state (0:47)
  50. Floating through space (1:14)
  51. 2 stabs (0:11)
  52. TARDIS (new landing) (0:18)
  53. Galaxy atmosphere (1:04)
  54. Tension builder (A) (0:45)
  55. Tension builder (B) (0:40)
  56. Tension builder (C) (1:06)
  57. Low sting (0:10)
  58. TARDIS: extra power unit plugged in (1:53)
  59. Music: Zoe’s Theme (1:19)
  60. White void (1:16)
  61. Music: Time In Advance (2:48)
  62. Cyberman brought to life (1:12)
  63. Cyber invasion (2:11)
  64. The learning hall (2:40)
  65. Entry into the machine (1:33)
  66. Sting (0:19)
  67. Music: Machine and City Theme (1:49)
  68. Music: Kroton Theme (2:13)
  69. TARDIS land (0:25)
  70. Alien control centre (0:27)
  71. Time zone atmosphere (0:40)
  72. Dimensional control (0:49)
  73. War Lord arrival (0:16)
  74. Silver box: the Doctor calls for help (1:02)
  75. Time Lord Court atmosphere (1:18)
  76. Music: Doctor Who closing titles (0:41)

Released by: BBC Music
Release date: 2000
Total running time: 78:23

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1999 D Doctor Who Soundtracks Television

Doctor Who: Terror of the Zygons

3 min read

Order this CD in the StoreThe first new Doctor Who soundtrack in several years, this release digs into the past, reviving two Tom Baker-era scores whose original recordings were presumed lost forever. Music from the fourth Doctor’s era is nothing new – Tom Baker’s final season is very well-documented musically, as it was the beginning of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s four-season stint at providing the show’s incidental music. Also, new synth-based recordings of several early scores were released on the now out-of-print Pyramids Of Mars CD in 1993. But original session tapes from the 1970s? Never thought I’d hear ’em.

The existence of this first volume in a series of new Doctor Who soundtracks is owed to a courtesy provided to the composers. It was customary for composers to receive a listening copy of their entire score once a project was completed, and composer Geoffrey Burgon still had his tapes of the Terror of the Zygons and Seeds of Doom scores. Bearing in mind that these tapes were almost 25 years old, and hadn’t been kept expressly for a future release, an elaborate remastering job had to be applied to the music to bring it up to CD standards. The results are fantastic – despite the caveats about the CD containing material from old analog source tapes, this stuff sounds like it was recorded recently.

All techie talk aside, the music itself is layered, moody and interesting, a marked contrast to the music of Dudley Simpson, whose music was synonymous with Doctor Who in the 70s. Director Douglas Camfield, who directed both episodes whose music is contained on this soundtrack, preferred not to hire Simpson to score his episodes. Burgon’s music tends to be more 3 out of 4moody and dark, and less “zany” than some of Simpson’s outings from the same period.

Completists and uber-fans will definitely want to pick up this CD, but others may want to check their video collections and listen to the music that way first – these scores hail from an era when the music was truly background music.

  1. Doctor Who opening title theme (0:32)

    Terror of the Zygons

  2. The Destruction of Charlie Rig (0:41)
  3. A Landing in Scotland (1:22)
  4. Murder and Mystery on Tulloch Moor (3:28)
  5. Wreckage (1:18)
  6. The Zygons Attack (0:51)
  7. Decompression (1:09)
  8. The Zygons’ Ultimate Weapon (1:24)
  9. Trance (0:50)
  10. False Harry (3:59)
  11. Monster On The Moor (3:27)
  12. Death At The Inn / Hunt For A Zygon (3:18)
  13. The Secret of Forgill Castle (1:44)
  14. Ascent and Descent (1:28)
  15. A Call From The Prime Minister (0:26)
  16. To London / The Death of Broton (2:55)
  17. The Monster Goes Home (1:10)
  18. Return Ticket (0:23)

    The Seeds of Doom

  19. Antarctica: The First Pod (2:20)
  20. "It’s Growing!" (1:02)
  21. Harrison Chase (0:42)
  22. The Pod Opens (1:12)
  23. The Galactic Weed (2:00)
  24. The Creature Attacks (0:39)
  25. A Plan For Murder / Hunt In The Snow (2:47)
  26. Sabotage (1:40)
  27. Chase Receives The Second Pod (1:08)
  28. The Chauffeur Takes A Detour (1:28)
  29. A Visit To Harrison Chase (2:11)
  30. The Hymn of the Plants / Floriana Requiem (1:22)
  31. Escape and Recapture (2:37)
  32. The Second Pod Bursts (0:51)
  33. Keeler’s Transformation Begins (0:56)
  34. The Composter (1:05)
  35. The Nurturing of Keeler (4:33)
  36. "Get Dunbar!" / Krynoid On The Loose (2:54)
  37. Amelia Ducat’s Theme (0:45)
  38. Molotov Cocktail (1:26)
  39. "The Plants Must Win" (2:28)
  40. The Plants Attack (2:54)
  41. Laser Fire (1:26)
  42. Trapped (2:13)
  43. The Final Assault (3:51)
  44. Doctor Who closing title theme (0:55)

Released by: BBC Music
Release date: 2000
Total running time: 78:25

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