Ghost Tones
Composer: Eliane Radigue
Piece: Number 17
Album: Opus 17
Length: 19:03
Year: 1970
Methods: Tape, feedback, slow mixing
A car was blinking its yellow lights, the sky was a dark purple fading into hues of sapphire, the wind, the air, the buildings, the distant hum of parc avenue. This song engulfs reality and drags it into its swirling ebb, soon you are out at sea floating across waves the size of mountains that move at the speed of your very slow steps.You breathe in and smell moisture from the gutters, breathe out and feel your feet sliding in your shoes, breathe in and watch the play of flickering lights then finally breathe out and greet the sounds to join your next breath.You are here, simply.
Éliane's sounds and this piece in particular immediately hypnotized me. Her use of controlled feedback which gradually evolves over time evokes the natural patterns of growth as a system that produces and channels its own energy into a kind of chaotic order. The sounds are full and at first uneasy, but when listened to long enough their slow modulations bring peace to my mind and gradually that peace turns into clarity. In her works, Éliane often plays with the psychoacoustic effect of "ghost tones" which is an artificially perceived tone created when two notes have a close frequency. "Artificial" in this case means that on a spectrum analyser you will not see the note you hear, it exists only in your head because you brain invents a fundamental to make sense of the harmonics it hears.
