Eliane RADIGUE
“PSI 847”

Long awaited first ever release of one of Éliane Radigue’s masterpiece. She mentioned once that with PSI 847, she reached at that time exactly what she intended to do with the ARP synthetizer. Deluxe version with 2 CDs + 24 pages booklet, in French and English. Composition : Éliane Radigue. 1972. Interpretation : Lionel Marchetti. 2012. Textes : Lionel Marchetti, Thibaut de Ruyter. A short history of 847. 11.1972 – ARP 2500 Synthesizer on magnetic tapes. Produced at the composer’s studio. Final mixdown at GMEB, Bourges. 02.1973 – First creation while in residence at the Electronic Music Studios of the University of Iowa. 31.01.2012 – Concert : Club Transmediale, Berlin. Interpretation Lionel Marchetti’s interpretation with original magnetic tapes Direction : Éliane Radigue. 11.2012 – ORAL 57 : CD 1: Version concert. Live recording of the spatial interpretation by Lionel Marchetti. Stereophonic recording directed by Marcus Gammel (Deutschlandradio), mastered and remixed by Lionel Marchetti. CD 2: Version studio. Original magnetic tape, size 6/25, 19 cm/s, mastered by Lionel Marchetti, autumn 2012. “The performance of PSI 847 is about to begin. Once again, Radigue has employed one of her favoured sound dissemination tricks: directing the banks of loudspeakers not toward the audience, but toward the building…The soundboard is at the rear of the house, and Marchetti will be playing the tapes from there. Radigue is in a seat, like any other audience member. There will be nothing to see, no one on stage, no visual distractions. But what happens when you listen to this music? What sensations, feelings or thoughts emerge? Obviously, any drone-based music generates, first of all, a physical experience… You must give in, abandon yourself, forget about trying to figure out whether three minutes or an hour have elapsed. This is… truly an experience of slowness. A rare moment for which you must prepare, and be in the right condition (no need to meditate, or try to achieve a trance state, either: a little concentration will suffice!)… Once you’ve accepted the loss of physical bearings, you can then attempt to grasp Radigue’s compositional talent: locating motifs that modulate and transform at varying intervals; appreciating the evolution, the appearance of a new movement, or, as in the case of PSI 847, the insensible dissolution of the music.” Thibaut de Ruyter, Berlin 2012.