Reissue culture gets derided for many reasons—they comprise the majority of RSD chum; they can obscure newer artists; they make for long queues at record pressing plants. Some see them as a pernicious symptom of something deeper: Britt Brown of 100% Silk wrote that the proliferation of past musics "reveals a host of aesthetic anxieties, disappointments, and insecurities lurking beneath the surface of our 21st century music landscape." But when reissues serve their highest calling, they shed light on voices neglected by history, and were it not for reissues and rediscovery, a generation of vital female electronic composers might have been lost.
It was in the late '90s, near the end of her life, for example, that BBC Radiophonic Workshop member (and "Doctor Who" theme composer) Delia Derbyshire received some recognition for her electronic music, and it's only in this century that more notice has been paid to the likes of Laurie Spiegel and Suzanne Ciani. Argentinean composer Beatriz Ferreyra, an early colleague of musique concrète inventor Pierre Schaeffer who studied at the Paris Groupe de Recherches Musicales studios from 1963-70, only had her work issued (by the label) in 2012. The Recollection GRM label, which has done fine work reissuing epochal works from the likes of Schaeffer, Luc Ferrari and Bernard Parmegiani, two recent reissues investigate Ferreyra's overlooked work and a revered obscurity from Michel Redolfi.
Ferreyra's release pairs two shorter '60s works with two longer, more recent compositions, and there's a fluidity to her work that suggests her methodology remains unchanged. The 21st century pieces are crisper and clock in at over twice the length as the earlier ones, but they sound of a whole. The accompanying notes, referencing alchemy and the Qabalah, suggest that change and the mercurial state of the natural world is a crucial theme to Ferreyra.
"Demeures aquatiques", from 1967, manipulates the sounds of metal sheets and glass rods to explore what Ferreyra writes is "the flow constantly facing the ebb." In it, a nervous wobble of electromagnetic tape gets nearly submerged by a drone before high fluttering tones shoot up, those high frequencies themselves becoming a drone. "Médisances", from the next year, is a four-channel piece turning orchestral instruments and mouth harp into salt water taffy, twangs and bowed strings slowed to an exhilarating crawl, all leading up to an exclamatory yelp at the last moment. There's a similar sense of speed on "Un fil invisible", which warps its source sounds at a dizzying rate. At the same time, there's far more space and silence in the mix for the smaller sounds to move about, with strings zooming, tactile objects bursting into stardust, and small scurrying sounds suggesting mice aboard a space station.
Fans of the furthest fringes of electronic dance music might recognize Michel Redolfi’s name, as his music has appeared in mixes by Demdike Stare, Rene Hell and early on in Four Tet’s Fabriclive mix, leading into twisted UK garage. As the 3D graphics (like the original edition, this reissue includes a pair of 3D glasses in its gatefold sleeve) and title attests, Redolfi became enchanted with the Pacific Ocean during a seven-year period he spent in California "attempting to musically translate my discovery of the Pacific," as he puts it.
Having spent one season learning to surf in the Pacific Ocean—which more often than not meant learning to read its temperamental, ever-changing waves and not be overwhelmed by its powerful currents—Redolfi’s compositions are a remarkable ‘translation’ of that body of water. Deploying the then-newfangled Synclavier digital synthesizer (which around 1977-78 was used primarily by Frank Zappa and Wire producer Mike Thorne), "Pacific Tubular Waves" differs radically across its five movements. Redolfi conveys a wide emotional range on this side: giddiness, exhilaration, bewilderment, glee, panic, uncertainty, and both an eerie and sun-kissed state of calm.
While one side explores the surface of the Pacific, "Immersion" uses as its source sounds from hydrophones submerged into the ocean itself. The design of Redolfi’s compositions can feel macro and micro at once, where the sensation of the Pacific’s vastness as well as the way small droplets bead up on your skin are both tangible. One can visualize the tiny bubbles surrounding each sound event here and "Deep Immersion" in particular is mesmerizing.
There’s a peculiar contradiction at play when it comes to reassessing such obscure electronic compositions. On one hand, they are cloistered soundworlds, artifacts with no outside signifiers; on the other, they don’t sound dated. Despite the five decades separating some of Ferreyra’s works, one won’t find any correlation to the many changes that mainstream music underwent during that same time period. They both exist outside of time, yet now feel at home in the modern electronic moment, where it’s normal to have DJ sets in the footwork/Fade to Mind/Hudson Mohawke mode be quicksand-solid and quickly morphing. In an uncanny manner, both reissues anticipate an aesthetic that now lurks just beneath the surface of our 21st century music landscape.
