Today sees the release of a special 4xLP collectors edition of work by Daphne Oram.

The edition, entitled Oramics, documents the illustrious output of electronic music pioneer Oram, who was the founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It’s the first time that any of the material – 155 minutes’ worth – has ever been available on vinyl; the four platters were cut at Berlin’s Dubplates+Mastering and are housed in a heavyweight 300gm gatefold sleeve featuring rare archival photographs. At this point we’ll defer to Young Americans, the label that’s responsible for Oramics, and let them tell you more:

“Daphne Oram was the founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a department she more or less single-handedly created in 1958 camping out at the BBC studios for nights on end splicing tapes and working with various modified machines to piece together her abstract soundscapes. Eventually the BBC bent under her pressure and in studio 13 created the soon-to-be-legendary Radiophonic Workshop, with Oram its first director.

“Despite her considerable and historic list of achievements, Oram’s life and work remain largely unknown by the wider public. As this remarkable 44-track collection shows, however, her work ranks amongst the most varied and pioneering ever made. As opposed to so much of the Radiophonic-era material that has surfaced over the last few years, Oram’s work is often characterised by a layered and introspective quality, offsetting classic playful interludes and commercial recordings with beautiful, immersive pieces like the breathtaking ‘Pulse Persephone’ and ‘Bird of Parallax’ – pieces that simply have no equal in electronic music made at the time.”

Put simply, without Oram it’s difficult to imagine that much of the music that we know and love today would exist at all. But, as Young Americans intuit, what makes her work remarkable isn’t just its “pioneering ” status, but its unique musical character, and its unmistakable human touch. Find more information about Oramics and listen to clips here.