Denys Irving

British musician and filmmaker. Irving was born on 4 January 1944 in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, and died on 5 August 1976 aged 32, after he was fatally injured in the maiden flight of a prototype hang glider at Mill Hill, Sussex. As Lucifer (13) he released 2 albums and 4 singles between 1971 and 1973, and 3 silent 16 mm films in 1969 plus 1 full length film in 1971, viz. the "motorcycle shock film" Exit coproduced with professor Naomi Zack - of which [r2001376] is the soundtrack album. Denys Irving studied at Oxford University (where he became friends with Howard Marks), at the London School of Economics and at Columbia University, New York, where he became fascinated by artificial intelligence and developed a marked interest in computers. Using Columbia University's mainframe computer, Irving developed his own programs to produce short computer generated silent films. Also in New York he pioneered projection systems for 'psychedelic' effects, and upon his return to the UK a working partnership with Jack Henry Moore culminated in light shows to accompany performances at the UFO Club, London in The Roundhouse. "Regardless of the primitive recordings and the occasional lyrical misogyny, Denis Irving's determined and some may say egotistical music career defined a cornerstone in British music. Proto punk, doom metal, satanic rock, psychedelia, electronica, all fixed genres that were carved from Irving's unique creative flow and single minded energy." Two years after Lucifer's fourth and final single, Irving's fascination for computers and simulated sound structures moved to synthesizers. As a result he worked closely with old friend Mike Ratledge on Riddles Of The Sphinx, the soundtrack to a 1977 film directed by Laura Mulvey & Peter Wollen. Having taken an interest in hang gliding in 1976, he would then tragically break his back that very same year having been thrust into a rockface by a strong wind. He left a wife, the actress Merdelle Jordine, and a son, Arthur. In 2012 the English composer Simon Rackham released the track "Lucifer's Song (A Passacaglia in Memory of Denys Irving)". Some of Irving's work has been shown at the Tate Gallery in London, and his films are held in the LUX collection of experimental film and video art..