Éliane Radigue
Good morning.
Today we’re listening to Éliane Radigue, a French electronic music composer from Paris. We’ve featured Radigue twice before. Radigue was born in 1932 and, inspired by musique concrète and New York minimalists, became an early adopter and popularizer of synthesizers. Thread participants and resurfaced her work at an opportune time. In January she released a new composition, Occam Delta XV, a pair of transcendent, scintillating string pieces performed by Quatuor Bozzini. We’re also playing her excellent Trilogie de la Mort from 1993.
Occam Delta XV - Éliane Radigue (70m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Trilogie de la Mort - Éliane Radigue (250m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Have a great start to your week.
OMG --- she is AMAZING. I've been listening to musique concrete and electronic music for close to 40 years, and had never heard of Radigue until 2019, when her Trilogie de la Mort came to my attention.
In November that year, I happened to be NYC for a conference, and one night, lying in my hotel bedroom, I searched for interesting live music that I might see the following night or two. To my astonishment, it turns out there was a performance of Trilogie de la Mort going on, right then, literally 3 blocks from me ---- but I'd just about missed it. It was 10pm already, and it had started at 8. Damn. One of the big musical regrets of my life.
Shifting multicolored textures. Without beats or silences, yet ever-changing. First time I've found something with these properties almost too involving for focus music - but I enjoy it. Warm-neutral complex drone. The music invites, but not over-enthusiastically.