Islas resonantes, Eliane Radigue on ARP 2500

Published on Nov 25, 2012

This one was spotted by brian comnes. You can find an article to go along with it here. Check out previous posts mentioning Eliane Radigue here.

Note the above video is followed by:
Eliane Radigue ‎- Triptych (1978) FULL ALBUM
Eliane Radigue | Feedback Works 1969-1970 [2012, Full Album]

Video Description:

"Un día me encontré con esta obra casualmente se mimetizaba con el sonido ambiente, fue en una casa de playa , por lo que no era fácil oír por el intenso sonido del mar, estaba atenta, quería escuchar que era lo que realmente sonaba, y no lo encontraba, hasta que aparecen fantasmagóricamente las voces soprano, despacio, atrás de todo, incorporándose poco a poco sutilmente la encuentro reproduciéndose en un lector de cd , aparece mi amigo Gerardo Figueroa, y me presenta a Eliane Radigue, máxima exponente de la música electrónica desde los años en que compartía con Pierre Schaeffer. y Henry en los años 60.............. nunca mas pude encontrar este disco, hasta hoy....por eso lo comparto. tiene la simpleza y sutileza de mezclar los sonidos puros y perderse infinitamente en las islas resonantes..."

Googlish:

"One day I found this work coincidentally blending in with the ambient sound, it was in a beach house, so it was not easy to hear from the intense sound of the sea, I was attentive, I wanted to hear what it really sounded like, and I could not find it, until the soprano voices appear spookily, slowly, behind everything, gradually incorporating the encounter reproducing in a CD player, my friend Gerardo Figueroa appears, and introduces me to Eliane Radigue, the greatest exponent of music electronic since the years I shared with Pierre Schaeffer. and Henry in the 60s .............. I could never find this record, until today ... that's why I share it. the simplicity and subtlety of mixing pure sounds and getting lost infinitely in the resonant islands ... "

RIP Bebe Barron

via darthmouth (click for the full article)

"Hollywood, however, had already been utilizing instruments such as the theremin in movie scores for many years, and the first widespread American public exposure to the possibilities of the electronic medium occurred with the 1956 release of MGM's feature film Forbidden Planet. In addition to its elaborate space sets and advanced visual effects, Forbidden Planet featured an exclusively electronic musical score composed by Bebe Barron (b. 1927) and her husband Louis (1920-1989)....

Once they decided on the characters' moods and situations, the couple completed a series of electrical circuits which functioned electronically in ways analogous to the human nervous system. Decisions about the circuitry were strongly influenced by their studies of the science of cybernetics which proposes that certain natural laws of behavior are applicable to both animals and more complex modern machinary. The composers employed their noise-producing circuits to emulate such needed characterizations as serenity, anger, and love....


Bebe and Louis' success signaled the beginning of the effective use of electroacoustic music by the modern movie industry."

You can also find more on wikipedia.
And of course Google Image search where I found the images for this post.



via Peter Grenader of Plan b:
"We have lost a bright little little light and a dear friend. Bebe Barron has passed. She has captivated us with her charm, her modesty and her enchanting smile and her memory will remain in our hearts, our art and our spiritforever."

Update: some nice words from Barry Schrader:

"Bebe Barron (1925 - 2008)

It is with great sadness that I report the death of Bebe Barron on April 20, 2008 at the age of 82, of natural causes. Bebe was the last of the pioneering composers of classical studio electronic music. She was a close friend, an enthusiastic colleague, and a most gracious lady.


Bebe Barron was born Charlotte Wind in Minneapolis, on June 16, 1925. She received an MA in political science from the University of Minnesota, where she studied composition with Roque Cordero, and she also spent a year studying composition and ethnomusicology at the University of Mexico. In 1947 she moved to New York and, while working as a researcher for Time-Life, studied composition with Wallingford Reigger and Henry Cowell. That same year, she met and married Louis Barron (1920 - 1989). Shortly thereafter, the Barrons began their experiments with the recording and manipulation of sound material by means of a tape recorder that they received as a wedding gift. They created a private studio in New York and, in 1955, composed the first electronic music score for a commercial film, Forbidden Planet. In 1962 the Barrons moved to Los Angeles; they divorced in 1970. In 1973, Bebe married Leonard Neubauer, a screen writer. Bebe became the first Secretary of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) in 1985, and also served on the Board of Directors. In 1997 Bebe was presented the SEAMUS Award for the Barrons life work in the field of electro-acoustic music. She is survived by her husband, Leonard, and her son, Adam.

Bebe’s last public appearance was on January 12, 2008, at an event held at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, celebrating the work of her good friend, Anais Nin. Bebe was too ill to speak in public at this point, but she agreed to be interviewed for a video piece that was shown at the event. This is her final interview, and you can see it on YouTube.

Bebe’s final composition, Mixed Emotions (2000) was composed in the CREATE studios of the University of California at Santa Barbara. I'll be putting this work up on the Downloads 2 page of my website, along with some photos of Bebe and myself taken in 2005 at her home on the Photos page within the next week.

I first met Bebe Barron in the middle 1970s; I don't remember exactly when, but I think it was around 1975. I had asked Bebe and her former husband and composing partner Louis to attend a showing of Forbidden Planet that I had arranged as part of a class at CalArts. They agreed to do it, and I quickly became good friends with Bebe and we remained close over the years.

In writing about Bebe Barron, it's impossible not to focus on the pioneering work that she and Louis did in electronic music. They began their experiments in 1948, shortly after they were married. This early work was done using a tape recorder, preceding the work of Luening and Ussachevsky and the switch from disks to tape by Pierre Schaeffer and the GRM. But, to my knowledge, the Barrons' early experiments did not result in any completed works, a state of affairs not uncommon with early pioneers in the field. In 1949 they set up one of the earliest private electro-acoustic music studios and began their experiments with electronically generated sounds. They built their own circuits which they viewed as cybernetic organisms, having been influenced by Norbert Weiner's work on cybernetics. The circuits, built with vacuum tubes, would exhibit characteristic qualities of pitch, timbre, and rhythm, and had a sort of life cycle from their beginnings until they burned out.

The Barrons recorded the sounds from the amplification of these circuits and this formed the basis of their working library. They also employed tape manipulation techniques as part of their compositional procedures. The sound qualities of these various amplified tube circuits and the tape manipulations that they underwent formed the musical language that the Barrons created in their studio. Unlike some of the work being done elsewhere, the Barrons' music reveals long phrases, often stated in tape-delayed rhythms, with the stark finesse of the tube circuit timbres. They created a style that was uniquely their own yet married to the technology they were using.

The Barrons earliest finished work, Heavenly Menagerie (1951) does not seem to have survived in a complete form. But their score for Ian Hugo's film Bells of Atlantis (1952), based on a poem by Anais Nin, who appears on screen, does exist on the film sound track. This may be the earliest extant work of the Barrons and presages what was to come with Forbidden Planet, the music for which was composed in 1955, the film being released the
next year.

The music for Forbidden Planet is truly a landmark in electro-acoustic music. This was the first commercial film to use only electronic music, and the score for the movie displays an attitude towards film scoring that was different from anything that had happened before. In Forbidden Planet, while there are themes for characters and events in the film, as was traditional in the scoring of that day, the themes are composed and perceived as gestalts, rather than as melodies in traditional movie music. Even more important is the fact that the scoring of Forbidden Planet breaks down the traditional line between music and sound effects since the Barrons' electronic material is used for both. This not only creates a new type of unity in the film sound world, but also allows for a continuum between these two areas that the Barrons exploit in various ways. At some points it's actually impossible to say whether or not what you're hearing is music, sound effect, or both. In doing this, they foreshadowed by decades the now common role of the sound designer in modern film and video.

The Barrons composed many other works for tape, film, and the theater in the 1950s. Their studio became the home for John Cage's Project of Music for Magnetic Tape, and they assisted in the creation of Cage's first chance piece Williams Mix (1951-52), as well as works by other members of the group such as Earle Brown and Morton Feldman. As a studio for the creation of their own and other composers' works, the Barrons' studio served as a functioning center for electro-acoustic music at a time when there was no institutional support of the medium in the United States. It's curious, then, that, for many years, the Barrons, their studio, and their works were largely overlooked by composers and historians in the field. Fortunately, that injustice has since been corrected, and, in 1997, it was my great honor to present to Bebe and, posthumously, to Louis, the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. Bebe was involved with SEAMUS from the very beginning of the organization. She was one of the ten original members who responded to my organizational call and met at CalArts in November of 1984 to form the group, and she was SEAMUS's first secretary. There may have been a little strong-arming on my part to get her to be involved so actively, but Bebe was always ready to support the cause of electro-acoustic music in whatever way she could.

Bebe created a firm legacy in her music. If the importance of one's work is to be judged in any regard by it's influence, acceptance, longevity, and innovative qualities, then the score for Forbidden Planet is an enormous success. It remains the most widely known electro-acoustic music work on this planet. For me, Bebe Barron will always be the First Lady of electronic music."

Update: BTW, if you have Netflix, you can watch Forbidden Planet online in IE here.


Bebe Barron on Anais Nin Uploaded on Mar 5, 2008

An Interview with Barry Schrader

Hi everyone! As you know Barry Schrader will be giving his farewell concert at CalArts on September 26. The following is the beginning of my interview with him. I opted to post the questions and answers as they come in.  New QAs will get a new post so you do not miss them and they will be added to this post so we have one central post for the full interview. This should make it easier for all of us to consume in our busy lives, and it will allow you to send in any questions that may come to mind during the interview process.  If you have anything you'd like to ask Barry, feel free to send it in to matrixsynth@gmail.com.  This is a rare opportunity for us to get insight on a significant bit of synthesizer history, specifically with early Buchla systems, and I'd like to thank Barry for this opportunity. Thank you Barry!

CLICK FOR MORE »

Serge Tcherepnin joins Random*Source as Chief Innovation Officer

Serge Tcherepnin has joined eurorack manufacturer Random*Source as Chief Innovation Officer. The official announcement follows:

"Serge (himself!) is back

Synth legend Serge Tcherepnin joins Random*Source as Chief Innovation Officer

Frankfurt, 13 November 2018. Serge Tcherepnin, the inventor of the legendary Serge Modular synthesizer system and, like Don Buchla, one of the founders of what became famous as the 'Westcoast approach', has joined the Random*Source team as Chief Innovation Officer with a focus on developing the 5th generation of the Serge modular synthesizer system.

Serge Tcherepnin is an American composer, musician and electronic mastermind of Russian and Chinese descent who grew up in France and in Chicago. His first teachers in music include his father, Alexander Tcherepnin, Nadia Boulanger, Quincy Jones. He fast joined the musical avant-garde at Harvard, studying with Pierre Boulez and meeting Henry Flynt and other FLUXUS musicians, and some of the ONCE FESTIVAL group of composers, among which Gordon Mumma whose electronics were an early influence. Returning to Europe, he worked at the Studio di Fonologia in Milan and the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop where he became friends with Delia Derbyshire, while giving concerts with Irmin Schmidt, Jon Hassel, Katerina Krimsky, in Germany. Now back in the USA, he became known for designing unusual electronic devices for musicians like his brother, Ivan Tcherepnin, Maryanne Amacher, Mort Subotnick, Charlemagne Palestine, Kevin Braheny and Malcom Cecil. In '70 he joined the music faculty at Cal-Arts with the express goal of researching the uses of electronics for music. It's there he developed the idea and design of the first “Serge” modules and started his company, Serge Modular Music Systems, in Hollywood, in 1975.

Joining the R*S team will allow Serge to lead the development of a number of new and previously unreleased Serge ideas and designs. As Serge states: “I’m excited to work even more closely with Ralf and the Random*Source team as we share the tech savviness, obsession with quality and constant urge to push limits further. The main goal is to expand the range of modules and sub-modules that lend themselves to being 'patch-programmed" in unusual and unforeseen ways, thus to add to and expand musicians' studio synthesizers way past standard synth configurations. I’d like to see the Serge system to grow wide and large, modules all talking to each other, whether they originated in my Hollywood lair in '75, or in the '80s on Haight Street, or now, coming from Random*Source.'

About Random*Source
Random*Source is a project founded by Ralf Hoffmann near Frankfurt, Germany, with a mission to carry on and further develop and extend the work of synth pioneers Serge Tcherepnin and Jürgen Haible. Since 2015 Random*Source has been working in close cooperation with Serge on a new generation of the Serge system. Using high-end parts and components, SMD technology and modern production methods allowed to improve audio performance significantly and develop more compact, slimmer modules and systems. Together with Serge, Random*Source also faithfully translated the Serge range from its original (“4U”) format to the eurorack format – using identical circuits and sticking strictly to the unique user interface of the Serge system, the “Serge grid”. Latest offspring of that collaboration is the New Ring modulator which Serge designed for Random*Source in 2017."