RADIGUE, ELIANE — Vice Versa

“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. Vice-Versa, etc…, which appears to be her very last feedback loop composition was conceived as a sound installation. 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. 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. 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.”—Manu Holterbach (translation: Maxime Guitton)

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