Eliane Radigue

But Adnos, even beyond the intrusive surface noise, there's a high frequency on Adnos I that just gives me a dealbreaking headache; the cycling test tones on Adnos II are hypnotic but if you're in the wrong mood they can seem too simple. About 40 minutes into Adnos III, it turns a corner into a beautiful 30 minute stretch that foreshadows where she went with Trilogie de la Mort -- if I were an iTunes listener I could just skip there more often...

her two new records are only available through mail order. 'Elemental II' is a live piece for solo bass & delay, based on an earlier graphic score of hers from 1968. this version is as much the player's (Kasper T Toeplitz) piece as Radigue's. sounds like a good room recording. http://www.sleazeart.com/rosa.html

'L’île re-sonante' is another tape work; similiar to previous ARP synth works like the 'Trilogie', but the pace is strangely faster and actually has a concrete section, a chorus layered hundreds of times. and the ending is particularly powerful, when she arrives at the last note, you really feel it, it's final. this is the one of the two I'm listening to more. http://www.shiiin.com/

i like trilogie, but i only really ever listen to the final track, koume, which is very rich sounding.

i only just heard e=a=b=a+b, and i hadnt thought of it as angry insects, a flurry of mechanical birds was what came to mind, for me. i like it, though, i do like things that seems like you are out in the woods.

I'd love to hear more of the 60's all-feedback-collage work, I hear they're great. I made myself a 50 minute mix of 'e=a=b=a+b' in pro tools with two stereo tracks, varispeeding the two sides to 16/33/45/78 and it definitely works.

& yep, 'koume' is an amazing ending to the set.

Charles Curtis played a new piece of hers for cello a few months ago at Mills. I had to miss the show but my friend Marc said it was fantastic, even though with large public shows there's always the danger of the casually interested starting in with those 'I'm bored now' coughs after about thirty minutes

took the main award for digital music for 'L’île re-sonante'

http://www.rootstrata.com/rootblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/eliane_radigue.jpg

from root strata

would marry.

i only know Adnos I-III, where next?

Is that her?

open image in new window / yes

listened to Jetsun Mila last weekend on headphones while hiking the Pacific coast. that & L’île re-sonante are the ones I listen to most often the last two years -- all of Trilogie d'la Mort is almost too heavy to casually throw on.

her new acoustic piece Naldjorlak for Charles Curtis' solo cello -- his sound is fantastic. there's something difficult about it that hasn't had me reaching back for the disc too often, I'm waiting for the right time. but it's a lot better than the CD of 'Elemental II', her previous piece for an instrumentalist. Charles Curtis is basically the man for this kind of sustain. & the packaging is beautiful.

Question with potentially no evidenceable answer: What's more difficult, landing a woman as serene and beautiful as Radigue or getting Shiiin to sell you a copy of any of their albums?

Um, isn't she kind of old?

she's still serene and beautiful

I've only ordered the two Radigue albums from Shiiin, but all I had to do was e-mail and paypal and they showed up about 2-3 weeks later.

I've tried writing a couple of times over the years with no luck. Guess I could try again. How long ago did you do that?

Never heard that lappetites stuff, any point? Wasn't Ikue Mori involved or did I make that up?

lappetites record is Ryo Co, Kaffe Matthews & AGF using a handful of Radigue's 60's pieces as source material for a jam. you can hear a bit of 'E = a = b = a + b' at points, other things are transformed. I remember thinking of it as a good document of a decent studio improv session, but I prefer Ryo Co's solo records.

& I ordered / received Naldjorlak last November. didn't have a problem, though lots of people of IHM agree he's really bad with email

keith's got 'em: http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/labels/shiiin.html

ah pause, he doesn't have L'Ile re-sonante. & that's the one I'd invest in before Naldjorlak. worth it.

http://vimeo.com/4163955

love this footage.

trying to understand french is giving me a headache

http://die-fremde.blogspot.com/2009/10/in-beginning-there-was-certain-music.html

the two new archival releases on Important, both fantastic -- 'Tryptich' is the one I'm playing over and over, from 1978. Recorded between Adnos I & II, but to me way better than either, it's just got the thing

'Vice Versa Etc.' is a 2 CD set of a single tape of a deep drone, each CD 4 tracks, the original tape played at 3.75 / 7.5 / 15 / 30 ips speed. first CD plays the tape forward, second CD plays the tape backwards, and it really comes to life if you do what you're supposed to and play the two discs on different stereos at the same time, different tracks against each other. great piece if you do that, but takes a bit more participation than 'Tryptich' to really launch

ok last night I did the work and set up 'Vice Versa Etc.' with each disc on its own player on shuffle play, and it must be some kind of masterpiece. completely different overtones come out of the tape at each playback speed, even though they're technically just octaves apart. the simplest things in the world are the hardest things to describe

hmm thanks for the info, i'm going to order these this weekend. like someone else above i've only heard 'adnos,' really excited to hear more. wish i understood french! (assuming the IMA piece is?)

http://www.junkmedia.org/index.php?i=2602

crosstalk from the i hate music thread here, which is filled with great posts
http://ihatemusic.noquam.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3617

just ordered the important discs. excited to finally hear these.

http://boomkat.com/vinyl/370918-eliane-radigue-jouet-electronique-elemental-1

not that this kind of music isn't inherently analog, but listening to those hissy vinyl clicky sound samples, releasing this vinyl-only is just frustrating

the pieces themselves sound fantastic -- other people got around to sounding like this later, but it really does sound like the most lasting works usually come from the people who were first to the field

I typically go for vinyl if the option exists, but yeah, it may not be the best fit with a sound as simple and pure as eliane's. haven't listened yet but I have the same reservations.

those clips sounds excellent though!

heh. they SOUND excellent that is.

listened to jouet electronique yesterday afternoon. wonderful. especially love the subtle, rhythmic feedback modulation during the side a coda.

and I'm not sure if it was just my copy, but it did seem like a bit of a noisy pressing as well. didn't distract me much but ymmv.

well, it appears I'm not the only one with this problem. from a review on the discogs page:

Massive amount of surface noise on brand new LP. Persisting after 2 professional vacuum cleaning...Do record plants ever make test pressings anymore before releasing albums?

a bit annoying for a pricey lp.

http://www.soundandmusic.org/projects/triptych-music-eliane-radigue

Interview with Eliane Radigue (by Paul Schütze) in the new issue of Frieze:

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/surround-sound/

That picture of her with the seashell.

Must admit I was getting to be wary of whether I was personally going to listen to another early archival release after 'Tryptich' & 'Vice-Versa', but I've been listening to 'Transamorem – Transmortem' a lot the last six weeks. Very intense & piercing even for her, but very very focused. About half an hour in, when the high tone occasionally does that little quiver, it feels like a physical push

Frieze is kicking ass with the electronic music coverage--they have The Wire beat for sure

er, not that I'm biased, or anything

oh yeah? what else have they published lately?

besides that very fine schnitzler article, that is. :-)

listening to 'trilogie de la mort' right now because of this thread ((((d-_-b))))

what else have they published lately?

here's a max mathews interview i did: http://blog.frieze.com/max-mathews/

i've written many other pieces for them, but they're not all available online--you have to buy the magazine. i have three big articles on the way, all dealing with electronic music, but i have a hand injury which is slowing me down a bit

but anyway, back to eliane radigue: my friend keith is hanging out with eliane in paris at this very moment

nice one. thanks for heads up on the article.

and good for Frieze, because i've found the art world to generally have shockingly unsophisticated and horrible taste in music (all those parties with camp-retro-irony djs who play 80s hits and mainstream disco)

yeah, thanks!

just listened to transamorem - transmortem and...

About half an hour in, when the
high tone occasionally does that little quiver, it feels like a physical push

...yes!

loved this bit from that interview:

I ’ve been working alone
for so much of my life. My only assistant
has been my cat .
I would always know something was wrong
when she made a face , but when she was
very quiet I’d just carry on .

my cats approved of transamorem btw

reissue of geelriandre / arthesis on senufo editions is out.

'arthesis' sounding particularly lovely to me right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwNIJa6Dexs

http://boomkat.com/vinyl/565809-eliane-radigue-feedback-works-1969-1970

frustrating to have this be another vinyl-only release when even the boomkat samples have crinkly vinyl noise, even though the music still sounds great under the pops. they've got to put out a CD of this + jouet electronique.

http://www.electrocd.com/en/cat/oral_57/
https://soundcloud.com/experimedia/eliane-radigue-psi-847-album?in=experimedia/sets/exp-new-march-14-2013

“The performance of Ψ 847 is about to begin. Once again, Radigue has employed one of her favoured sound dissemination tricks: directing the banks of loudspeakers not toward the audience, but toward the building… The soundboard is at the rear of the house, and Marchetti will be playing the tapes from there. Radigue is in a seat, like any other audience member. There will be nothing to see, no one on stage, no visual distractions. But what happens when you listen to this music? What sensations, feelings or thoughts emerge? Obviously, any drone-based music generates, first of all, a physical experience… You must give in, abandon yourself, forget about trying to figure out whether three minutes or an hour have elapsed. This is… truly an experience of slowness. A rare moment for which you must prepare, and be in the right condition (no need to meditate, or try to achieve a trance state, either: a little concentration will suffice!)… Once you’ve accepted the loss of physical bearings, you can then attempt to grasp Radigue’s compositional talent: locating motifs that modulate and transform at varying intervals; appreciating the evolution, the appearance of a new movement, or, as in the case of Ψ 847, the insensible dissolution of the music.” —Thibaut De Ruyter, Berlin (Germany), 2012

The Wire, Issue 180, February 1999
Eliane Radigue: Death Becomes Her (extracts) By Julian Cowley

During the 1950s, Radigue drew her first substantial nourishment as a composer from the innovations of musique concrete. Previously, she had played the twelve tone game, but found it unfulfilling. Then, while working as Pierre Henry's assistant, she chanced upon electronic feedback effects. "I was absolutely fascinated," Radigue remarks in a telephone interview, "not only by the sounds but by their behavior. With the tape recorders of that period, a little defect could bring interesting results. I found this garbage of sounds very expressive."

... Radigue embarked on her own course, turning her attention to synthesizers which allowed easier building of the sounds she required. An ARP analog synthesizer has remained her chosen means to make music, although for 25 years her style has been Minimalist. PSI 847 was her breakthrough piece - for the first time her musical conception was closely matched in execution over 80 minutes of sustained, gentle sound.
"The duration was just a matter of the necessary time I had to go through in order to reach what was my real goal," she explains, "which is still my goal, a very slow changing process within the sound itself. Something which is not external to the sound." She feels that the nature of her chosen synthesizer's modular system grants her "access within the flesh of the sounds".

played each disc once, right out of the mailer about three weeks ago. the first disc, the concert recording, is remarkable. incredibly high fidelity for a room recording. it's only at the first cough, about 20 minutes in, that you get a sense of the room's huge dimensions, and that it dawns on you that there are hundreds of people in that room silently listening to the piece.

the second disc is the direct transfer of the tape; the first disc was so intense that I don't think I gave it as much of a chance. sometime soon.

New to this, 'Trilogie De La Mort' is just amazing. Which one do I check out next, or is it simply "all good"?

she's consistent, though each work is just distinct enough so everyone has different favorites. so the 14 CD INAGRM box that came out last year can't be beat.

there are now three distinct periods, feedback (1960~1970), synthesizer (1970~2005), acoustic (2005 onward). the box covers the synth period minus 'Transamorem - Transmortem'. The Alga Marghen label put out three compilations of the early works, 'Feedback Music' is a good start, the two 'Occam Océan' CDs are probably the place to start with the acoustic.

Been listening to Geelriandre / Arthesis on YouTube as I was considering buying the vinyl reissue on Important Records. Does anyone know if it comes with a download? I’m suspecting it doesn’t.

Just picked up the Adnos trilogy. Looking forward to diving in later.

have been mesmerised by Occam Ocean 2 today.

Eliane Radigue is the motherfucking bomb y'all forever in my heart and soul

Aw :) Which one(s) are you turned on by atm?

I listen to Trilogie a *lot*

extremely powerful music

It's mindblowing stuff.

agreed all around, her work is monumental. and recently read this book, and would recommend.

https://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?id=7465

Interesting indeed. And I had no idea Les presses du réel published English-language material.

book is fantastic, Eckhardt gets her to go into detail on every single piece. lots of insights into early inspirations and the early feedback / pre-synth work. and lots about Occam Océan 2 for orchestra, which she does the same way she writes for individuals - she meets with every single member of the ensemble for at least a day, has them demonstrate their instrument and she builds up from there

still playing Occam Ocean 2 a lot. there isn't anything like it. in a sane world there'd be reviews.

I think the only place I saw it reviewed was on an obscure free jazz blog

That book looks great

There is so much going on in her work in such a subtle way

I feel like listening to it in my kitchen on my hundred quid speakers is not doing it right. Can only dream of kitting out the Rothko Chapel with a state of the art sound system and listening to it full welly!

in my tentative and unschooled opinion music actually doesn't get any better than Eliane Radigue

yeah for real

Trilogie is one of my top discoveries from the ambient albums poll

Some fool obviously didn't think much of "Jetsun Mila" so I picked it up secondhand for less than a fiver. Sweet!

(... also "Una Lucertola con la Pelle di Donna" by Morricone, maybe a different fool though).

90 years old today

looking forward to hearing her first organ work Occam XXV when it comes out in March.

This month's The Wire has a good Primer on her discography. It had an interesting factoid that it's only recently that she's developed a significant discography.

https://vimeo.com/541076521/d661c359f7

short doc here

NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/arts/music/eliane-radigue-music.html

looking forward to hearing her first organ work Occam XXV when it comes out in March.

It's a total beaut

https://organreframed.bandcamp.com/album/occam-xxv-2

there's a live performance from a couple of years back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jdHIHzvhkQ

Already sold out! Hope there will be a second run.

In other news the 14 CD INA/GRM box set is back in print.

https://boomkat.com/products/electronic-works

That's a really nice package but I just recently purchased Adnos I-III and Trilogie de la Mort as stand-alones, so I think I'll pass.

(xp) ... as is Bernard Parmegiani, "L’œuvre musical en 12 CD", because I've just ordered it.

Thanks for the heads up. Also bought the Parmegiani. This is the kind of classical music I buy on BoomKat.

In other news the 14 CD INA/GRM box set is back in print.

Indeed it is and I found a pretty cheap copy of it online and ordered it ... only for it to be caught up in a dispute between Parcelforce and this hellhole of a local post office of mine. Basically someone at the post office has stolen it and they're desperately trying to cover their tracks by denying they ever received it, Parcelforce are just pointing to their records and saying they did. Did. Didn't. Did. Didn't. Did. Didn't. Did. Didn't. Meanwhile, I'm stuck in the middle, having spent almost as much on phonecalls as the value of the box set (quite literally) with no prospect of ever receiving it and not much more prospect of ever receiving any compensation for it. I would call the British postal service third world but that would be insulting to most third world countries.

Can't wait until the postal thief puts it on and wonders wtf he stole.

With a bit of luck they'll return it as faulty.

To me. In person. It's an unusual crime, for sure.

An old friend of mine who was a postie in the 90's did a couple of years in prison for that. I can't remember if he was stealing mail or he just couldn't be arsed delivering it but they threw the book at him. He was living at his brother's house and due to a misunderstanding the cops broke his brother's door in after a couple of unanswered welfare check visits and then saw a pile of undelivered mail next to a post bag and reported it straight to the Post Office. After that I always assumed mail/parcel theft by postal workers was perhaps too risky to be a common sort of crime.

This hasn't been stolen by a postie it's been stolen by one of the staff at the post office branch.

Apparently parcels are constantly going missing at this post office. I think they rely on the fact that so many of their customers don't know how to go about making a claim. A lot of their clientele don't have very good (or any) English language skills or are ancient and/or unlikely to have sufficient knowledge/ skills/ support. Also there's a lot of transitory residents in this area. It's no a service, it's a cash cow for a bunch of cynical crooks.

There used to be a nice big post office on Holloway Road - well run and with helpful and knowledgeable staff. That got sold off and is now a B & Q. Instead we ended up with this utter shithole which has been run by a never-ending stream of shysters and cowboys ever since

The place is completely desolate, there's nothing in it apart from a photo booth machine that no-one uses and a couple of dilapidated shelves with some diaries for sale sitting on them. And the inevitable mobile phone shop. This is in area where the rents are completely through the roof despite being an absolute dump.

If you ever want to see a metaphor for the UK in 2022, visit this place. Just don't get any mail delivered there.

Guess what was waiting for me when I got home tonight? Turned up just as mysteriously as it disappeared. Just as well as last time I checked it was on sale for twice what I paid for it.

Yay! "A letter always arrives at its destination"

Neither snow nor rain nor sludge nor drizzle nor the wrong kind of leaves on the line stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, they just like to take their time

To be accurate, the couriers did their job two weeks ago, it was Holloway Post Office who "couldn't find it" and claimed till they were blue in the face that they'd never received it in the first place.

Yeah I went to that place once, never again! Good to know The Drone lives to fight another day though.

This Sunday:

https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/contemporary/eliane-radigue-exploring-occam-rhodri-davies-friends/

Preceded by:

https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/contemporary/gavin-bryars-at-80/