Éliane Radigue A cleansing

[Arpangel]

If you haven’t explored her music, it’s a very interesting experience, it’s like a cleansing, going right back to the basics of sound, and music, making you think about less is more.
It’s also extremely interesting how she patches her instrument, using frequency modulators to process the outputs of ring modulators, and feedback loops.
Her music may seem challenging, but it clears your head, and makes you think about what’s actually necessary, and what to leave out. Sometimes beauty is in the detail, in the recesses, so often hidden by over production and obfuscation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2U0q4lZiFg

[Ben Asaro]

Her compositions are fantastic.

"Moderation in all things, excess of occasion" is how I like to make most of my music these days.

I love minimalism, but don't subscribe to "less is more" as a philosophy. Composition-wise, I prefer minimalism to reductionism.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I had a humming noise in my studio like that once. A DTI box cured it...

[rggillespie]

I didn't get this joke but now I've listened to Eliane Radigue, it's become very clear! It's intriguing stuff more of a sound than a tune from what I've heard so far. I'll try some more this week thanks for the tip, hope you're enjoying your new monitors

[Arpangel]

What we call noise, can carry emotion just as powerfully as any musical device, it depends how you listen, what your life has been like, and what it reminds you of.
Sadly, Eliane Radigue died just a couple of weeks ago, RIP.
This is where AI will fail miserably, music isn’t just music, it’s as much about the person that makes it as it is the music itself, it affects how you hear it, I can imagine this elderly lady sitting in her apartment in Paris, with her giant synthesizer, just the two of them, making magic, with the ghosts of composers past circling around her.

[OneWorld]

If I need think about what I like then it’s not for me, music goes deeper than rationale and justification, the liking of music is a reflexive reaction to it, it’s instinct. It goes beyond emotion etc, how emotive is Chirpy Chirpy Cheep, Cheep, but there are millions that go ape over it, no reason, they just do.

[Arpangel]

If I need think about what I like then it’s not for me, music goes deeper than rationale and justification, the liking of music is a reflexive reaction to it, it’s instinct. It goes beyond emotion etc, how emotive is Chirpy Chirpy Cheep, Cheep, but there are millions that go ape over it, no reason, they just do.

There are no lines in the sand AFAIC, just things I have no reaction to, and some that I do, music is just the most important thing in my life, always has been, much to my detriment, and lost partners.

[OneWorld]

If I need think about what I like then it’s not for me, music goes deeper than rationale and justification, the liking of music is a reflexive reaction to it, it’s instinct. It goes beyond emotion etc, how emotive is Chirpy Chirpy Cheep, Cheep, but there are millions that go ape over it, no reason, they just do.

There are no lines in the sand AFAIC, just things I have no reaction to, and some that I do, music is just the most important thing in my life, always has been, much to my detriment, and lost partners.

That's what I don't get,lines in the sand has adversarial connotations doesn't it? Whereas music is by it's very nature, not divisive and people are free to take it or leave it, it does different things to different people, as do people, some take us, some leave us, oh dear what a shame never mind, music never lets you down, not a line in the sand but the earth beneath our feet

[Arpangel]

OK, there are no "barriers" in my head that exclude any music, for any reason.
Divisions in music? struth, there is whether we like it or not, it’s there, and has been obvious at various times, Mod's Rocker's fighting on the beaches, into their own music, Punk's hated electronic music, and Prog, then there’s Gangster Rap, a whole lifestyle, not to mention the hostility I experienced as a recording engineer with long hair at classical sessions.

[OneWorld]

OK, there are no "barriers" in my head that exclude any music, for any reason.
Divisions in music? struth, there is whether we like it or not, it’s there, and has been obvious at various times, Mod's Rocker's fighting on the beaches, into their own music, Punk's hated electronic music, and Prog, then there’s Gangster Rap, a whole lifestyle, not to mention the hostility I experienced as a recording engineer with long hair at classical sessions.

Mods and rockers etc didn’t battle because of the music they preferred, music just happened to be the soundtrack to their chosen lifestyle and anyway, who is claiming there are no divisions? During my electronic music phase, and I was obsessed with it, all the punk rockers I knew were amongst my best friends. Your long hair upsetting classical musicians? Really? Well, everyone has their foibles, but classical musicians have long hair too, look at Beethoven etc Maybe you just got them on the wrong day. I’ve just never been able to lump together one group of people from another, there’s individuals amongst us all.

[Arpangel]

OK, there are no "barriers" in my head that exclude any music, for any reason.
Divisions in music? struth, there is whether we like it or not, it’s there, and has been obvious at various times, Mod's Rocker's fighting on the beaches, into their own music, Punk's hated electronic music, and Prog, then there’s Gangster Rap, a whole lifestyle, not to mention the hostility I experienced as a recording engineer with long hair at classical sessions.

Mods and rockers etc didn’t battle because of the music they preferred, music just happened to be the soundtrack to their chosen lifestyle and anyway, who is claiming there are no divisions? During my electronic music phase, and I was obsessed with it, all the punk rockers I knew were amongst my best friends. Your long hair upsetting classical musicians? Really? Well, everyone has their foibles, but classical musicians have long hair too, look at Beethoven etc Maybe you just got them on the wrong day. I’ve just never been able to lump together one group of people from another, there’s individuals amongst us all.

There’s obviously one, big difference between the two of us.



In the 70’s I was a Hippy, you didn’t go anywhere near a Skin Head club otherwise you’d get a good kicking, and they hated our music, but I loved Ska 2 Tone etc.

[FrankF]

There’s obviously one, big difference between the two of us.

Is it the hairdo?

[MOF]

I had a humming noise in my studio like that once. A DTI box cured it...

It didn’t sound as regular and clean as that to me. It sounded like the things I’d be asking to turn off when interviewing people in their homes and offices, such as fridges, air conditioning etc!
That’s to say I didn’t realise at first I was actually hearing what she was producing.
Did she actually make a living from doing this?!!!

[Arpangel]

I had a humming noise in my studio like that once. A DTI box cured it...

It didn’t sound as regular and clean as that to me. It sounded like the things I’d be asking to turn off when interviewing people in their homes and offices, such as fridges, air conditioning etc!
That’s to say I didn’t realise at first I was actually hearing what she was producing.
Did she actually make a living from doing this?!!!

She did many things, musically, worked with a lot of the early avant-garde pioneers, her husband was quite a well known painter, I think they both had a bit of money, and ARP2500’s aren’t cheap.
What we have to realise is that some of her work may sound a bit passé today, but at the time it was a serious attempt at something that tried to let go of tradition, and like all of these people they were ridiculed and still are, but at the same time they are "sleepers" their work tends to gently seep into our worlds, and certain people who are involved in more mainstream activities take it and find ways to use it in more commercial work.
As work in its own right, it’s extremely important, take that bit of the puzzle out of musical history and there would be a big gap, I personally don’t try and justify any of it, I like it in it's own right and in its own context.

[MOF]

Sorry I don’t get it, much like the bulk of modern art I see at Nottingham Contemporary, I’m in and out in three minutes.
I was doing some regular freelance work in London years ago and had about four hours between News bulletins, one evening I went to see Tate Modern, some of the art, though not my taste, had clearly had some thought and effort put into it, however there was one hall that had the doors open and chain link fencing across the entrance with a sign hung on it saying ‘this room is closed while the new exhibition is being installed’.
In the centre of this room was a step ladder with a mop, in a bucket, leant against it.
To this day I don’t know if it was literally what it said it was or if it was the exhibition.
I’ve a feeling it was a pretentious bit of modern art and I think some ‘music’ is likewise.

[Arpangel]

The fact is, you wrote this and it made you think about this music, like or dislike, it matters not.
I have the same reaction to vacuous pop but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place, and my opinions are worth absolutely sod all.
I never got a lot of modern art and music, but their comes a time when you realise there’s actually nothing to "get" that’s when it all makes sense.
A step ladder and a mop, Monet's sun flowers, no difference, the differences are what you’ve been told, monetary value, reputation, what art is "supposed" to be, the art world is a massive game, music is no different.
Just don’t "care" none of it is important, when I realised that I started to really enjoy stuff, and my own music startled to make sense, to me.

[MOF]

I don’t consider it to be music, a modern art ‘sound installation’ maybe but definitely not music!

[Eddy Deegan]

I don’t consider it to be music, a modern art ‘sound installation’ maybe but definitely not music!

There's a lot of her work that doesn't work for me musically but I respect what she's done even if not all of it is up my tree. I liked this section of one piece for example. It goes on a bit but it's pleasing sound to my ears.

Each to their own and in my head one's preferences shouldn't dictate how one judges the work of another. Subjectively, I prefer Jarre though

[Arpangel]

I don’t differentiate between sounds, music is sound, there is no noise in my world, just unwanted noise, or, "misplaced noise"
Every sound has a possible emotional affect on me, it can be the sound of a dustcart in the morning, children in a playground, a distant train, Beethovens 5th, or Cage's Silence, which he "conceived" to highlight exactly what we’re talking about.
Seeing Eliane Radigue in her room, with her massive synth, an elderly lady, her rolls of wallpaper, her scores, it’s a powerful image, her, and her music, was, an installation all of itself.

[MOF]

I prefer Jarre though

Not one of his best tracks, sounds a little, make that very, indulgent to me, it certainly doesn’t pass the Old Grey Whistle Test.

[MOF]

I liked this section of one piece for example. It goes on a bit but it's pleasing sound to my ears.

Well the buried in the mix loop of a woman is musical in the sense that there is more than one tone droning on for hours.

[MOF]

Cage's Silence

Yes, modern art, not music.
Or in the case of a recent high profile artists release “Is This What We Want?” a protest record of silence.

[Arpangel]

You don’t like the woman, there’s nothing more to discuss, really.

[MOF]

Not the woman, her artistic output.
I have to say that with the sheer volume of music already out there and with new material being released every day that actually has melody, rhythm and harmony, you managed to find something, that I genuinely thought sounded like room atmos’, and spent time listening to it in preference to actual music.

[Arpangel]

Not the woman, her artistic output.
I have to say that with the sheer volume of music already out there and with new material being released every day that actually has melody, rhythm and harmony, you managed to find something, that I genuinely thought sounded like room atmos’, and spent time listening to it in preference to actual music.

You spent time listening to it? you actually listened.
I make patches like this regularly, I find them beautiful, I have a patch on my Barp 2600 that is so therapeutic, and musical, just a simple noise sound, but it could be natural materials rubbing against each other.
As I said, I don’t differentiate between so called noise, and so called music, it’s all part of the same world, and just as emotionally loaded.