Eliane Radigue - Adnos I - III

Here is a spectacular item from the late and lamented Table of the Elements record label. It is getting increasingly hard to come by and hence more and more expensive, unfortunately. There are some rips of Adnos floating around on the web, but as far as I have seen, only in the mp3 format. I believe that a lossy format does this record a great disservice because the sonic richness of these three pieces really needs to be heard across the entire frequency range. I was able to locate it on a torrent site and in flac, so even if the files are much larger, I believe it's worth the extra time it takes to download them.

What to say about these three pieces? They are drone-based with obvious references to the US minimalist scene in the 60s and later around figures like La Monte Young, but to these ears, they never become monotonous. There are subtle changes going on all the time throughout these 70 minutes pieces, but it takes an attentive ear attuned to the nature of slowness to fully discover them. As such, they are meditative and in a certain way buddhist in design and execution. Radigue later got immersed in Mahayana Buddhism and these pieces provide an explanation.

Radigue likens her music metaphorically to the movement of water, to the changes of sound waves whereby the ear filters, selects and emphasizes some areas of hearing or by by looking at shimmering water, always in motion, yet remaining the same.

These are better heard on a good stereo than on an computer or a portable listening device. The acoustic ambience of the room within which these pieces are heard is part of the performance, and you may find that sound generates sound, set off by the vibrations of sound waves.

Enjoy!

To move stones around in the bed of a river does not affect its course, but can only change the play of the waves on the surface.