Artist : Eliane Radigue
Title : Vice Versa, Etc
Genre : Electronic
Year : 2009
Date : 02/2011
Bitrate : VBR kbps
Tracks : 08
Label : Important Records
Source : CDDA
Encoder : Lame 3.97
Length : cd1: 29:27 cd2: 29:25
Size : 77,8 MB
Tracklist:
----------
CD1
01.Onward 9,5 13:43
02.Onward 19 08:38
03.Onward 38 04:22
04.Onward 76 02:44
CD2
01.Backward 9,5 13:43
02.Backward 19 08:38
03.Backward 38 04:22
04.Backward 76 02:42
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58:52 min
Eliane Radigue: feedback on magnetic
tape
Includes archival photographs and liner
notes.
1970 was an important year in Eliane
Radigue's musical life since it was the
year just before she
acquired her ARP 2500 synthesizer. Since
1967, she had been using the feedback as
a material; feedback
from two tape recorders reworked through
intensive studio techniques: slowing
down, alteration, superimposition,
montage.
In 1970, the last year she dedicated to
feedback, several milestone pieces saw
the light of day: Omnht, a wonderful
sound installation for three out-of-
phase tape loops and wall-mounted
loudspeakers; the theoretical setting of
Labyrinthe Sonore (eventually premiered
at Mills College in 1998 in
collaboration with Pauline Oliveros,
Maggie Payne and William Winant, amongst
others); Opus 17, one of her first
compositions in fixed duration
(according to Rhys Chatham, a decisive
piece that would change his own
compositional career); and Vice-Versa,
etcà, which appears to be her very last
feedback loop composition.
Vice-Versa, etcà was conceived as a
sound installation setting similar to
S=a=b=a+b. A single magnetic tape can be
played at any speed, a stereo tape of
which allows three playings: left
channel alone, right channel alone, left
and right channels together. These
different channels can be
overlapped/crossed over as much as
possible, at any speed. Thus the piece
reveals itself in its whole dimension,
its infinite grace.
In its content, the piece is the most
minimal that Eliane Radigue has ever
composed. Feedback is horizontally
sustained, time is suspended, vibrating
with organic and subtle pulsations. The
fastest playthrough, in just 2'42",
weaves a graceful continuum of uncanny
depth, somewhere between the sonority of
feedback and a glass harmonica. Played
slowly, at 13Æ41ö, it takes us into an
universe of low frequency vibrations
felt as much by the guts, the ribcage
and the whole body as by the eardrum:
the signature sound of Eliane Radigue.
Between these two extremes, many
delicate shadings/variations appear
simply through speed modulation.
What is striking about this work, which
may arguably be one of Radigue's most
important compositions, is the
extraordinary quality of the tones
obtained from such a rudimentary
material. It is hard to believe that the
composer was yet to begin working on her
ARP, since the sonorities heard on
Vice-Versa, etcà are surprisingly
similar to those she would go on to
produce with her synthesizer.
Vice-Versa, etcà is a minimal work which
possesses an infinity of possible
variations, a secret object containing
the seeds of the oeuvre to come, and a
discreet turning point linking the
composer's two important working phases,
an extremely subtle cross-fade between
her feedback loop period to her ARP
period.
Originally, only ten signed and numbered
copies of this little boxset containing
a magnetic tape and a handwritten note
were released - needless to say this is
a work that has been nearly forgotten!
We have decided to reissue this object
as a double CD, with the tape played
respectively forwards and backwards, at
four different speeds, corresponding to
the standards of the tape recorders of
the time. This will allow dedicated
listeners to experiment with
simultaneous playback of the work's
different versions, recreating the
conditions of the original installation.
For lazier listeners, a simple play
through provides complete satisfaction,
a listening experience that loses itself
in the ineffable and discreet beauty of
these four variations.
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