This hands-on workshop is a rare opportunity to find out more about the Fairlight CMI, a musical instrument that could cost anywhere up to £100,000 when artists and groups like Afrika Bambaataa, Kate Bush, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood used it in the 1980s. Its Australian designers expected it to be used for imitating the sounds of orchestral instruments but its users began, instead, to record the sounds of everyday life.

Researcher Paul Harkins, curator Annie Jamieson and former owner Robin Scott (aka M of ‘Pop Muzik’ fame) will lead a workshop in which they talk about the Fairlight’s history, explain how it helped start the sampling ‘revolution’ in popular music, and give people the opportunity to sample and play with some digital noises of their own.