Worldly Noise and Electronic Atmospheres [Album]

Situated on the edge of the North York Moors in North East England are three giant, geodesic domes containing the space radars of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Built in 1962, the purpose of the ‘radomes’ at RAF Fylingdales was to track everything in Low Earth Orbit and distinguish the signal of an incoming nuclear weapon from the ‘noise’ of satellites and space debris. Along with designing and building these radar systems (as well as those on the Apollo program’s Lunar Module), RCA developed revolutionary innovations in recorded music such as the velocity microphone, the 45rpm single and the music synthesizer. Indeed, during the early years of operations at Fylingdales, the supply chain of radar component parts (many of which were the same switches and dials as those used on early RCA synthesizers) was managed from the same office that dealt with the distribution of records by ABBA, David Bowie and Iggy Pop.