Transamorem - Transmortem was premiered on March 9, 1974 at The Kitchen in NYC, where the music programmer at the time was Rhys Chatham - this was right before his guitar phase. During this period, Transamorem - Transmortem was presented along with other compositions by Eliane Radigue in a linear mode of listening, although the piece had originally been conceived, during its composition, as a sound installation. Of course, both modes of listening are possible, and each works marvelously in its own way. In their original form, Eliane Radigue's works are magnetic tapes. After being played a few times in public, the tape disappears to its case until a release proposal makes it available again through a disc.During this period Eliane Radigue's compositions became fairly long, some lasting over an hour. Because the tracks could not be edited for some obvious reasons, a vinyl release was unthinkable. It was only in the 90s, with the advent of the CD format, that the long compositions of Eliane Radigue were made available (with the exception of the Song of Milarepa LP on Lovely Music, a work already divided into multiple movements and thus able to be fit onto two sides of an LP).  For these reasons, the work of Eliane Radigue remained virtually unknown for twenty years - from the 70s to the 90s.It was in 2004, when she accepted my aid in digitizing her archives, along with Lionel Marchetti, that I discovered Transamoren - Transmortem.  Immediately, I was awed by the majestic grace of this very long tangle of frequencies, this set of seemingly unchanging tones, whose variations are of a delicate subtlety.  Transamoren - Transmorten is recognizable as one of the most radical of Radigue's compositions, comparable to the first Adnos, the work that follows Transamoren - Transmortem chronologically.  Very few transformations, an apparent formal aridity that is then contradicted by the physical play of the frequencies as the listener turns her head gently from right to left, or better yet as the listener moves slowly throughout the music space.  Moving through zones of specific frequencies, the listener's body experiences localized zones of low, medium and treble frequencies which vary according to the acoustic properties of the space.  As Radigue wrote of Adnos: "to displace stones in the bed of a river does not affect the course of water, but rather modifies the way the water flows."  Here, we find the same meditative tension proposing a peaceful movement through the spaces created by the different frequencies that compose Transamoren - Transmortem.Very well-organized, Eliane Radigue's archives are a pleasure to explore, and Transamorem - Transmortem's case contained a mine of information. What excited me most was the short text entitled Inner Space, which described the ideal conditions under which Transamorem - Transmortem should be presented. That is to say, as a sound installation."Inner Space -This monophonic tape should be played on 4 speakers placed in the four corners of an empty room.  Carpet on the floor. The impression of different points of origin of the sound is produced by the localization of the various zones of frequencies, and by the displacements produced by simple movements of the head within the acoustic space of the room.  A low point of light on the ceiling, in the center of the room, produced by indirect lighting.  Several white light projectors of very weak intensity whose rays, coming from different angles, meet at a single point." ~ Eliane Radigue, 1973 I immediately felt that it was necessary to make Transamoren-Transmorten available once again, and this time in its ideal form, in trying to follow Radigue's recommendations word for word. It was with this idea in mind that the Cumulus collective (also responsible for the contemporary music festival Why Note) organized the Continuum festival in Dijon along with the art space Le Consortium (one of the founders of which had persuaded the group Circle X to record their first, mythic EP in Dijon in 1979 - but that's another story!). The goal was to correctly present some of Eliane Radigue's sound installations, an aspect of her work now completely forgotten.  And yet, between 1967 and 1971 her work was often exhibited in galleries of contemporary art, mostly in Paris (Lara Vincy, Yvon Lambert, etc.), a reflection of the fact that French people have had a harder time than Americans placing the work of Radigue.  She herself hesitated for quite a while to use the word "music" to describe her work, a complex that is familiar to this generation of musicians, and which is now no longer really a problem.  Who would claim that the work of Eliane Radigue is not musical?  That would be strange .... The 2006 Continuum festival in Dijon saved four sound installations from the dust (an expression that Radigue uses to describe her archives): S=a=b=a+b (1969), Omnht (1970), Labyrinthe Sonore (1970) and Transamorem - Transmortem (1973).  The first two installations are composed with feedback, the two others with the sounds of the ARP 2500 synthesizer.  Each one is based on a strategy of specific spatial presentation, but that's also another story ....

Back to music after three years of silence.... On the suggestion of Robert Ashley, Douglas Dunn commissioned this piece from Eliane Radigue for choreography. Only the first part of Triptych was staged at the premiere at the Dancehall/Theatre of Nancy on February 27, 1978. "Recorded in the composer's studio in Paris. "After the premiere of Adnos I in San Francisco in 1974, a group of French students introduced Eliane Radigue to Tibetan Buddhism. When she returned to Paris, she began to explore this spirituality in depth, which slowed her musical production up until 1978. Triptych marks her return to composition, and draws its inspiration from 'the spirit of the fundamental elements,' water, air, fire, earth.... Eliane Radigue likes to add that this has often been useful to her in her moments of research and transitions. "This three-part composition, with its great humility and contemplative simplicity, heralded a new period of work and was the first in a series of masterpieces inspired by Tibetan Buddhism: Adnos II (1980), Adnos III (1981), Songs of Milarepa (1983) - with the voices of Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Robert Ashley -, Jetsun Mila (1986), as well as the Trilogy of Death: Kyema (1988), Kailasha (1991) and Koume (1993)." ~ Manu Holterbach (translated by Maxime Guitton) Archival images included in the accompanying booklet.

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, among 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, etc…, which appears to be her very last feedback loop composition. "Vice-Versa, etc… 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 13:41, 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, etc… are surprisingly similar to those she would go on to produce with her synthesizer. "Vice-Versa, etc… 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."

Night Flights is a groundbreaking work from one of the most influential of the first generation sound artists. For some reason this staggering work has been left out of print for over 20 years. Night Flights has been remastered and includes updated liner notes from Christina Kubisch. Night Flights is being released in conjunction with Kubisch's release of new work for Important Records titled, Audible/Inaudible: Five Electrical Walks. “The compositions for Night Flights were realized in Milano in the period between 1983 and 1986. Milan at that time was a vivid and experimental place, with many international (mostly American) guests performing like Robert Wilson, John Cage, Trisha Brown, The Living, Laurie Anderson, etc.. At that time we were a group of several musicians working loosely together, exchanging knowledge about custom made instruments, the latest electronic devices, rare records, and information about where to go and what to listen to. "The lack of digital information and internet was one of the reasons for frequent meetings and musical experiments. We were determined to be the avant garde in a classical world of virtuosity. Davide Mosconi, Raffaele Serra, Riccardo Sinigaglia and others included myself had small but, seen from today's point of view, very artistic and exotic looking studios with many strange, often non-European instruments and all kinds of keyboards, electronic drums and tape recorders. The official studios from the conservatory were not available for us but not interesting as well. We tried to make multichannel recordings and mixes by ourselves, we invented long tape loops going through the whole room, echo effects and reverb. We became specialists in cutting and manipulating tapes. "The so-called non-European musical tradition was a permanent source of inspiration. The meeting and performances with Roberto Laneri, overtone singer and Indian music specialist, opened up new horizons. For several years I worked as well for the record company Raretone and was responsible for the release of the recordings of Giaconto Scelsi. I spent wonderful long days at his home, full with conversations about art and music. Alvin Curran, who took care of Scelsi's tapes and archive, often came by. "There was a special fertile atmosphere in the early eighties in Milano. Somehow all these activities and the search for new sound worlds and techniques were a vital step on the way to what today is called sound art, though the term was not common then. Some characteristics of what is defined as soundscapes or sound environment are included in Night Flights: a special interest in sound colours, musical structure based on may layers of natural recordings and the intent to open up the listener's space even with the limited means of a vinyl recording.” ~ Christina Kubisch