Éliane Radigue passed away earlier this week at the age of 94. She was, and remains, a looming presence in our listening at OBLADADA. The French composer is without doubt one of our very favourites.
We have, several times, spent whole days (and mind blown hours) locked into her vast electronic plateaus, illuminating the passing of time, whilst carving huge forms that feel like whole universes being birthed. Music that fixates on that point where atoms go widescreen and then expand infinitely further.
Radigue was trained by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in the mid 50’s, which immersed her in musique concrète. In the decades since, focussing at various times, in electroacoustic feedback and electronic music (centred around her ARP 2500 modular synthesiser), and numerous more recent collaborations, her body of work can be easily summarised as top tier drone.
Whilst live performances were part of her practice, her work seemed best enjoyed framed by the limits and constraints of physical media and a sense of human time. How much music that could fit on a reel of magnetic tape, side of vinyl, or compact disc became the constraints of her horizons. But of course, rather than limiting anything – her world quickly operates outside any normal frameworks.
Works like Vice Versa, etc / (originally her first self-released recording from 1970) gather feedback recordings on magnetic tape, which are then duplicated, playing the left, right or both channels, and at various speeds. Everything here is a form of organised nothing, formless ‘stuff’, with just enough presence to loop into a chiming regenerating reality. The idea was that, within these criteria, pieces could be played in the same space, and any overlap would mesh and interpolate. A living, breathing moiré. The music could last as long as you wanted, and even if you just listen to the individual elements, it’s already incredible. Bottled infinity.
Like many rooms around the world, today my home is filled with her music, and is dusted in sadness. The boxset Oeuvres Électroniques currently sits open on my stereo like a blue and white supernova. 14 CDs filled with more than half an earth day of sonic excellence. A potent adventure through Biogenesis, Arthesis, Ψ 847, Adnos I, II and III, Les Chants de Milarepa, Jetsun Mila and the vast Trilogie de la Mort. Not one second is wasted.
Randomly, Adnos II is my current soundtrack which expands majestically into the Scottish air. Music that fills time and space, in a fundamental, psychedelic and beautifully hypnotic way. In the midst of this accumulation, tiny sounds become islands in space. Repetition, echoes, saturation, everything contoured and outlined to glimpse an endless, but tiny forward momentum. Things are different in this music, time feels recalibrated, and the sound is a shapeshifting laser beam of pure controlled energy.
And it’s utterly staggering. Every time.
For those who knew and loved Éliane Radigue, I offer my deepest condolences. For the rest of us who only knew her through her work, her ongoing gift has just become even more treasured and endless.
Éliane Radigue RIP
1932 – 2026
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