The Carousel From Hell: The Story Behind The 'Picture Box' Theme Tune.
“Who decided this carousel from hell theme tune was a good idea to put on a kids TV programme?”
That is a direct quote from a Reddit thread that began a couple of years ago. ‘The Carousel From Hell’ the writer is referring to is the theme tune to Picture Box, a successful ITV show for children, which first aired in 1966 and continued throughout the 1970’s and 80’s. Another contributor to the Reddit thread goes on to say that they used to find the host of the show creepier than the music. To be quite honest, and I’m probably not alone here, I couldn’t remember much about the show itself, other than the title and that theme tune, which I happened to find quite comforting back then, jaunty even, and not really sinister at all. In hindsight I suppose it is a bit creepy, the theme tune that is, not the show itself nor the presenter, which was Michael Rothwell for much of the 1970’s. The tune certainly sounds unearthly, and very unlike most kids TV themes of the 1960’s, with the obvious exception of Dr Who. That it is so well remembered by so many, whether fondly or otherwise, and the fact that it provokes such diverse reactions, makes it the perfect hauntological theme.
The story behind the tune is a fascinating one, for musos in particular. Entitled ‘Manège’, the music was played on an instrument known as a Cristal Baschet, named after it’s inventors, the Baschet brothers, Bernard and François. The instrument was an array of glass rods which, when rubbed with moistened fingers, would produce piercing drone-like tones. The result is eerie, celestial even, and sounds a little like a theremin. Besides the Cristal Baschet, The Baschet Brothers created other similarly unusual instruments, or sound sculptures as they preferred to call them, hence their collective label of ‘Structure Sonores’. Having created the instruments they needed someone to play them, as this is where musician-compose husband & wife team Jacques and Yvonne Lasry step into the picture. The Baschet’s and the Lasry’s met in 1954 and together the four of them formed ‘Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet’. The music they produced could veer from the atonal Musique concrète of Stockhausen and his contemporaries, to the more celestial tones of modern classical, with the occasional influence of the classical and folk music of India and the Middle-East. I suppose it could be described as proto-ambient.
Once together, the group spent the next decade touring and performing their compositions, and producing music for exhibitions, theatre and film, including the music for Jean Cocteau’s ‘Le Testament d’Orphée’, all of which led to them being commissioned by the French government to represent France at The Seattle World’s Fair in 1962. Despite such lofty commissions, the group were still little known in the UK, although the story goes that they were considered by the BBC to produce the theme music for Dr Who, before that privilege fell to Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer. But they did have one celebrity champion in this country; Radio 1 DJ, John Peel. The Peel.fandom website contains the following quote from Peel;
“If you’ve heard the Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet then you will care to own “Chronophagie” on French Arion 30 S 060 also available from those EMI import places as are the three 10″ LPs on BAM. If the Pink Floyd were not available to do the music for any space film then Lasry-Baschet could do nicely. Now that would be a Super Session – Les Structures Sonores presque Rouge and what is the French for Floyd anyway?”
A Pink Floyd/ Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet collaboration would indeed have been something to hear, and something to see. Footage of Yvonne and Jacques playing the Cristal Baschet certainly makes for an odd spectacle. A ‘4:3 Boiler Room TV’ article quotes music journalist Simon Reynolds as describing Jacques performance in the footage as “a bit like a Gallic Keith Moon”. I can see that, and the Lasry’s also look as though they are cleaning up after themselves after a heavy day in the laboratory. Either way, to see them frantically plucking away at the Cristal Baschet alongside a flailing Nick Mason for a re-worked Careful With That Axe Eugene would surely be a hit on YouTube.
For more information about the work of Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet, check out the following Finders Keepers page on Bandcamp –https://finderskeepersrecords.bandcamp.com/album/instruments-non-lectroniques