Eliane Radigue

Jetsun Mila

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Slow-cooked drone perfection by one of the C.20th’s greatest composers, serving a timely reminder to sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen.

Regularly hailed among the most extraordinary works of its kind, ‘Jetsun Mila’ is Eliane Radigue’s 84 minute evocation of the life of Milarepa, a great yogi and poet of Tibet who lived in the 11th Century. Recorded in 1986/7, following the preparatory ‘Songs of Milarepa’ (1983) it depicts the french composer at a peak of her powers of extrasensory perception, harnessing exceedingly subtle sonic phenomena from her favoured ARP 2500 synth and tape feedback, and de/focussing their shimmering timbral artefacts at an imperceptibly time-slowing pace that, with intent immersion, can result in transformative experience. Or at least an insight into other, subliminal planes of perception. Very simply, despite many attempts by others, no other recordings possess the patient depth and effect of Eliane’s music, which can be considered a major point of departure for modern composition into dematerialised yet holistic forms, quietly upending convention in the process.

The 80 minute piece built upon techniques Eliane had first developed over decades since the 50s, when she first studied with Pierre Schaeffer at RTF and became studio assistant to Pierre Henry. Thereafter followed periods away from recording to raise her three children, and Eliane’s creativity came back into focus around 1970 with access to an ARP 2500 synth at NYU, and was further inspired by her introduction to Tibetan Buddhism in 1975. These two key moments indelibly shaped her practice to come, providing a technical and spiritual thrust that resulted her dedications to Milarepa during the ‘80s. ‘Jetsun Mila’ was the 2nd of these, a uniquely absorbing evocation of the eponymous yogi’s life, occurring in imperceptible transitions of barely-there harmonic shifts and sound pressure that conjure an immanent presence. Of course, as with Buddhism’s search for enlightenment thru meditation and spiritual and physical labour, don’t expect the results to come easily, immediately or spectacularly, but, given time and space, the effect of Eliane’s music can be utterly life-affirming.

MP3 Release (2)