White Noise are an English experimental electronic music band formed in London in 1968, after the American-born David Vorhaus, a classical bass player with a background in physics and electronic engineering, attended a lecture by Delia Derbyshire, a sound scientist at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, then both former members of electronic music project Unit Delta Plus, joined Vorhaus to form the band.
Biography
An Electric Storm
In June 1969, White Noise released the groundbreaking album An Electric Storm on Island Records. The album was created using a variety of tape manipulation techniques, and used the first British synthesizer, the EMS Synthi VCS3. Amongst many oddities, the first track on the album, "Love Without Sound", employed sped-up tape edits of Vorhaus playing the double bass to create violin and cello sounds. Although not initially commercially successful for Island, the album is now considered an important and influential album in the development of electronic music, namechecked by contemporary artists like The Orb and Julian Cope, influencing contemporary acts such as Broadcast, Add N to (X), and Secret Chiefs 3.
Painter joins (2011–present)
In 2011, Vorhaus enlisted Mike Painter and toured as White Noise. In a 2015 interview with The Quietus, Vorhaus stated his continued interest in experimentation with modern technology, saying there are less limits than there used to be.
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of An Electric Storm, a new album Lightning Strikes Twice was released in 2021. The album featured Vorhaus and Painter, both using MANIAC (Multiphasic ANalog Inter‑Active Cromataphonic, or software simulation of it), Vorhaus on the Kaleidophon (his string instrument invention using ribbon controllers) and Painter using a virtual reality glove.
Side projects
From the 1980s, Vorhaus has made electronic library music recordings for KPM Music and De Wolfe Music using Fairlight CMI. Vorhaus has written music for TV and film and his music features on TV commercials and TV themes.