Eliane Radigue
Naldjorlak
Boomkat Product Review:
Éliane Radigue’s momentous first composition for an acoustic instrument, recorded in 2006 in close collaboration with cellist Charles Curtis, is presented in a new remaster and paired with Curtis’ engaging 2020 recording, both embracing the infidelities of the elusive ‘wolf tone’
A masterclass in control and the cosmic clinamen, ‘Naldjorlak’ is Éliane Radigue & Charles Curtis’ meticulous investigation into the physical and philosophic properties of resonance. The piece is famously the first written by Radigue for an acoustic instrument after nearly a half century working exclusively with electronic synths and tape. However, it also directly follows a line of enquiry from her search for the elusive partials - an element of feedback produced by closely related pitches - in that medium, to an investigation of the ‘wolf tone’; a phenomenon of warbling instability that occurs in some bowed instruments, most famously the cello, and is commonly considered undesirable, yet which in Radigue and Curtis’ hands becomes a point of fixation and portal into sound beyond more earthly conceptions of music. It is a fascinating study in liminality, the dark matter of sound, and states of mind produced by deep concentration, and holds among the avant garde’s important, groundbreaking works.
From Gascia Ouzounian’s liner notes: “Even as it expands conceptions of what sound is, and thus what music can be, to understand Naldjorlak only as music would be to limit its scope. It is music, but it is also physics and philosophy. Naldjorlak is a detailed investigation of the physical properties of resonating bodies and dynamic systems; it is a meditation on the condition of instability; it is a metaphysics of chaos and uncertainty.”
Presented on Saltern, the LA label run by Tashi Wada, and which issued Charles Curtis’ remarkable ‘Performances & Recordings 1998-2018’; the two performances of ‘Naldjorlak’, recorded in Paris, 2006, and LA, 2020 represent the mutability of the work and its attempt to grasp the unknowable. Both centre exclusively around the wolf tone’s fuzzed burr but differ in their nature, with the earlier one defined by a relative tussle with the tone’s growl, a contrast that becomes apparent in the tantric, tongue-tip edging of the 2nd. Both feel like Curtis is deeply connected to Éliane’s ideas and endeavouring to best represent them, finely taming the instrument’s clinamen, or cosmic urge toward chaos, and with seat edge effect that, in both cases, practically knocks us ours when the pieces tip over at breaking points deep into the hour. Collected, they are the definition of deferred gratification in key with Éliane’s buddhist beliefs, and richly rewarding listening for those with the time and patience the music deserves.
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2CD mastered by Stephan Mathieu with custom packaging and screen printing by Alan Sherry, and extensive liner notes by Gascia Ouzounian, Éliane Radigue, and Charles Curtis.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Éliane Radigue’s momentous first composition for an acoustic instrument, recorded in 2006 in close collaboration with cellist Charles Curtis, is presented in a new remaster and paired with Curtis’ engaging 2020 recording, both embracing the infidelities of the elusive ‘wolf tone’
A masterclass in control and the cosmic clinamen, ‘Naldjorlak’ is Éliane Radigue & Charles Curtis’ meticulous investigation into the physical and philosophic properties of resonance. The piece is famously the first written by Radigue for an acoustic instrument after nearly a half century working exclusively with electronic synths and tape. However, it also directly follows a line of enquiry from her search for the elusive partials - an element of feedback produced by closely related pitches - in that medium, to an investigation of the ‘wolf tone’; a phenomenon of warbling instability that occurs in some bowed instruments, most famously the cello, and is commonly considered undesirable, yet which in Radigue and Curtis’ hands becomes a point of fixation and portal into sound beyond more earthly conceptions of music. It is a fascinating study in liminality, the dark matter of sound, and states of mind produced by deep concentration, and holds among the avant garde’s important, groundbreaking works.
From Gascia Ouzounian’s liner notes: “Even as it expands conceptions of what sound is, and thus what music can be, to understand Naldjorlak only as music would be to limit its scope. It is music, but it is also physics and philosophy. Naldjorlak is a detailed investigation of the physical properties of resonating bodies and dynamic systems; it is a meditation on the condition of instability; it is a metaphysics of chaos and uncertainty.”
Presented on Saltern, the LA label run by Tashi Wada, and which issued Charles Curtis’ remarkable ‘Performances & Recordings 1998-2018’; the two performances of ‘Naldjorlak’, recorded in Paris, 2006, and LA, 2020 represent the mutability of the work and its attempt to grasp the unknowable. Both centre exclusively around the wolf tone’s fuzzed burr but differ in their nature, with the earlier one defined by a relative tussle with the tone’s growl, a contrast that becomes apparent in the tantric, tongue-tip edging of the 2nd. Both feel like Curtis is deeply connected to Éliane’s ideas and endeavouring to best represent them, finely taming the instrument’s clinamen, or cosmic urge toward chaos, and with seat edge effect that, in both cases, practically knocks us ours when the pieces tip over at breaking points deep into the hour. Collected, they are the definition of deferred gratification in key with Éliane’s buddhist beliefs, and richly rewarding listening for those with the time and patience the music deserves.
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