Project Moonbase – The Historic Sound of the Future | Unusual music show | Podcast | Space cult | projectmoonbase.com

It's time to open your exercise book, dust off your favourite slide-rule and turn to page 5 of your book of logarithms as Project Moonbase starts a new course of study with Mathematics. We have mathematical music from Moon Patrol, LearnThruMusic, Vic Mars, Bertrand Burgalat, Super Guachin, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Kim & Buran, Angelo Michajlov, The Focus Group, Susan Cantey and David Lewin as well as a non-mathematical version of show favourite Caravan.

After spending a quiet afternoon enjoying the soundtrack to Daktari with Space Disco Jeff recently (as one does), he suggested that we do a show all about lions. We felt this was perhaps slightly too niche so instead we turn this week's show over to the wider world of big cats. We also have another version of show favourite Caravan - this time mambo style!

It's time to pull on your favourite slacks as we celebrate the exciting world of the trouser. This week's theme was inspired by Chinese quartet New Pants, who have become something of a favourite of the show in recent weeks and also the extremely mirth-inducing trouser-related contribution to The Soulless Party's Electronic Encounters project by Dolly Dolly David.

Sad and happy news reached the Moonbase this week as we learned on the one hand of the imminent demise of Ceefax (boo!) after 38 years of service but on the other, the joyous news that the ZX Spectrum has reached its 30th anniversary. Good on you, Sir Clive! We thought it therefore only fitting that we mark both of these auspicious moments in the history of technology by playing a selection of tunes which have a connection to one of these two hot topics.

It's time to catch up with some recent releases and reissues on the show this week. So we have a track from the new EP by Giant Claw, an 8-bit cover of an 80s classic and another track from our favourite military style calliope. We also have a couple of tracks from a new collection of recordings by co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Daphne Oram, a track from the new Dolphins Into The Future album, the welcome return of show favourite Caravan and a track from the new (and, we think, best to date) album from Belbury Poly.

It's time to put on your lead-lined lounge suit for this particularly dangerous edition of the show as we tackle the controversial topic of radioactivity.

This week on the show we send our hearty 50th anniversary best wishes to Mick, Keef, Ron and Charlie as we mark 50 years of The Rolling Stones. As regular listeners will know, however, we try to avoid playing tracks by the artists we are actually featuring. So on the show this week you'll hear Stones covers in a range of styles including brass, bluegrass, electronic, glitch, Eurovision pop, disco and latino soul.

We decided to set ourselves quite a challenge this week by trying to put together a whole show of tunes relating to that mysterious sphere of study known as cryptozoology. So if you've ever been bothered by yetis, had your pond taken over by fishmen or had trouble with mothmen flapping around your lightbulbs, this is the show for you.

It's time to don the kagoule, pack a distress flare (or pair of distressed flares) and make sure you know how to operate a compass as we celebrate the Great Outdoors. We'll be going for a walk with Max Greger and his orchestra, running about with Alan Hawkshaw, relaxing beside a babbling brook military style, having a bongo-fuelld picnic, getting frisky beside a waterfall with Gillian Hills and climbing a mountain quite slowly with one of our favourite antipodean singers. We also have a lovely herbaceous track from the new album by Belbury Poly.

A suitably epic edition of the show this week as we celebrate the world of thespians who have attempted to moonlight as singers, with varying degrees of success. Marvel at septuagenarian Mae West rocking out, Telly Savalas' invention of new musical notes, the alternative universe where Grease was made by elderly Brits and the tropical sound of calypso in entirely the wrong hands.

Heated curlers and tongs at the ready as we explore the world of hair care on this week's show. We have hairy music from George Wright, Adderall Canyonly, Jimmy Fallon, Bruce Springsteen(!), New Pants, Dr Lonnie Smith, Mort Garson and Tipsy, In addition to all the piliferousness, we also have a track from the new Belbury Poly album and a seasonal track from the latest reissue from Trunk Records. There's also a track from India's only psychedelic rock band (allegedly).

Tonight's show features the work of the "Delia Derbyshire of the Atari generation", namely Suzanne Ciani. Suzanne Ciani was a pioneering composer of electronic music making use of banks of modular synths, in particular Don Buchla's generative synthesis systems. She also created her own "voice box" and used all of this equipment to compose music for adverts, corporate logos and of course the Xenon pinball machine. We also have more from F.C. Judd, a new release from Jon Brooks, a Mooged-up version of Caravan, some ambient exotica from G.E.S., an 8-bit version of an 80s detective series and another track from Music Minus Music.

On tonight's show we wish a very happy 80th birthday to one of the greats of movie music making, John Williams, by playing a selection of his best-loved themes. Being Project Moonbase of course, very few of the tracks are actually performed by the great man. We've tried instead to find as many different approaches to his music as we could. It would appear, though, that the opulence and majesty of John Williams' music tends to attract fans of the glitter ball more than any other genre. So as a result this evening's show is rather disco-tastic.

It’s time to put on snorkel and slippers (is that right?) for an undersea adventure with Project Moonbase. Yes, every track on the show this week has an underwater theme. with music from Al Caiola, Stereo Total, Les Baxter, OMO, Dolphins into the Future, Korla Pandit, Sven Libaek, Jürgen Müller and Gil Evans. We also have a bit of a Moonbase exclusive from Logan 5 and our App of the Week this week is the faithful emulation of that iconic 80s sampling synthesizer, the Fairlight CMI.   Listen now: The Music 1. Various Artists: Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea from 100 Greatest TV Themes 2. Al Caiola: Underwater Chase from Ultra-Lounge, Vol. 8: Cocktail Capers 3. Stereo Total: Kappa Works in the Factory from Underwater Love (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) 4. Dolphins Into The Future: Onset – Beyond Clouds from …On Sea-Faring Isolation 5. Les Baxter: The Ancient Galleon from The Exotic Moods of Les Baxter 6. Logan 5: Atlantis 7. OMO: ROV from The White Album 8. Sven Libaek: Sounds of the Deep from Inner Space 9. Korla Pandit: Tales Of The Underwater Worshippers from Exotica 2000 10. Jürgen Müller: Sea Bed Meditation from Science of the Sea 11. Gil Evans: 1983-A Merman I Should Turn to Be from Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix   App of the Week In 1979 Peter Vogel came up with the Fairlight CMI, one of the first sampling synthesizers and an instrument which largely defined the sound of 1980s electronic pop. Over 30 years on, it’s now possible to get all the functionality of the Fairlight into your iPhone or iPad with this Fairlight app. However, if you’d still like to own an actual Fairlight CMI, you’re in luck because Vogel has put that back into production too. However, you’ll need around $30,000 to get your hands on one.For considerably less you can purchase the Fairlight app. There are two flavours, the regular version and the “Pro” version. Our advice is to start with the basic version and then upgrade to Pro if you want the full Fairlight experience. But you can see the differences in each version by compare the features. Project Moonbase is listener supported. So next time you buy anything from Amazon, please go via our Amazon affiliate link. It won’t cost you anything, is totally anonymous and best of all it helps keep the show running. Thank you! The Unnecessary News ‘Time travelling’ French presidential candidate ridiculed for Normandy claims The science of the golden spider-silk cape Guy Spends Six Years Making the World’s Largest Gumball Gardener Claims Viagra Makes Plants Perkier Chololi – Japan’s Nose Hair Notification Service, Now Available in English,

A very Gong Xi Fa Cai to all our listeners this week as we wish a very belated Happy Chinese New Year to you all. This year is the Year of the Dragon and so we've chosen that as one of the themes this week. The other theme is all things new (and old) as we highlight a few of the flurry of new releases which have already popped out this year. So you can look forward to hearing tracks from a great new compilation of recordings by lost British radiophonic pioneer Fred Judd as well as new tracks from the Moon Wiring Club and Pye Corner Audio. We also have a few selections from a new compilation by Andy Votel of electro-magnetic poly-pop, robotic rock and modern day mechanical music.