A separation has many stages. It starts with an ellipse, a kind of alienation, and slowly unfolds into an opposition or even better a difference before it moves on to a departure. We can understand a separation as a way of seeking clarity, of pulling things apart materially, temporally, or creatively.
Eliane Radigue’s own creative path has gone through many departures including the departure from her musical beginnings in piano, her time at Studio d’Essai in Paris, her time at Studio Apsome or her monumental work with the ARP 2500 synthesizer. Separation has marked these milestone moments in her creative career as a composer and an explorer of slowness, leading her to a new cycle of works focusing on acoustic instruments only to make her realise that everything was already there since the beginning, bringing a deep unity in how Radigue works with sound across methods, materials and time.
This is beautifully demonstrated on the recent collaborative release between Radigue with the French-ensemble Dedalus and UK-based Japanese-Korean artist Ryoko Akama (Montagne Noire, MN7). The album features two compositions from her OCCAM series that were written at the same period but for different means. The first titled OCCAM – HEPTA 1 (2018) is performed by Ensemble Dedalus using solely acoustic instruments whilst the second one titled OCCAM – XX (2014) is performed by Ryoko Akama using an analogue synthesiser.
Despite the opposing means used, both pieces, skilfully and delicately performed by ensemble Dedalus and Akama, demonstrate the essence behind Radigue’s compositional methods and her purposeful focus on harmonies, sub-harmonies, micro-tonalities and micro-oscillations hidden behind the slow unfolding of overlayed frequencies that intonate together, allowing for a deep, detailed and elusive listening experience. We find in these two pieces another fine example of Radigue’s vastness, depth, and openness as it is interpreted by others, in the most accurate way.
Where OCCAM – HEPTA 1 offers a meditative journey through sustained, resonant, and vibrating wind and string instruments, OCCAM – XX, achieves a similar effect through the use of a sequence of overlapping sine tones. Above all, the release, echoing Radigue’s work, travels the listener through time’s own spatial dimension where all kinds of separations, antitheses and interferences are dissolved into one single, slow movement. (Maria Papadomanokaki)
a closer listen 