Electronic music — or, as we think of it today, most popular music — is so taken for granted that it’s easy to forget its original pioneers were iconoclasts of their time. Lisa Rovner’s new documentary Sisters With Transistors, about the women who expanded the technological and artistic possibilities of the form during the 20th century, presents those forebears with grace, accessibility, and a touch of the avant-garde.
Beginning with Clara Rockmore, the violin prodigy who dazzled audiences in the 1920s with her theremin (an electronic instrument played via hand movements through the air,...
Beginning with Clara Rockmore, the violin prodigy who dazzled audiences in the 1920s with her theremin (an electronic instrument played via hand movements through the air,...
- 4/29/2021
- by Claire Shaffer
- Rollingstone.com
The unsung trailblazers behind electronic music are paid harmonic homage in Lisa Rovner’s enchanting documentary
Lisa Rovner’s superb documentary pays a deeply deserved, seldom-expressed tribute to the female composers, musicians and inventors from the brief history of electronic music. The focus falls on about nine or 10 women in the field, from experimental music pioneer Clara Rockmore, a Theremin maestro in bias-cut evening dress, through to the British composer and mathematician Delia Derbyshire (probably best known for co-creating the Doctor Who theme), up to Suzanne Ciani, the first woman to score a major Hollywood movie (The Incredible Shrinking Woman in 1981) and her contemporary, composer and early software designer Laurie Spiegel.
Related: The 20 best music documentaries – ranked!
Lisa Rovner’s superb documentary pays a deeply deserved, seldom-expressed tribute to the female composers, musicians and inventors from the brief history of electronic music. The focus falls on about nine or 10 women in the field, from experimental music pioneer Clara Rockmore, a Theremin maestro in bias-cut evening dress, through to the British composer and mathematician Delia Derbyshire (probably best known for co-creating the Doctor Who theme), up to Suzanne Ciani, the first woman to score a major Hollywood movie (The Incredible Shrinking Woman in 1981) and her contemporary, composer and early software designer Laurie Spiegel.
Related: The 20 best music documentaries – ranked!
- 4/23/2021
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
Metrograph Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to “Sisters With Transistors,” a documentary about the women who were the pioneers of electronic music. The film will debut virtually on Metrograph’s website on April 23.
Directed by Lisa Rovner, “Sisters With Transistors” had its world premiere at the 2020 South by Southwest Film Festival and later played at AFI Fest.
“‘Sisters With Transistors’ was a true revelation to us,” said Metrograph Pictures’s head of distribution George Schmalz. “The untold story of the groundbreaking women who brought us some of the most revealing music ever created, ‘Sisters With Transistors’ is an impeccably crafted film that we’re thrilled to bring to audiences nationwide.”
The doc spotlights critical but little-known female leaders of electronic music, including Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire, Wendy Carlos, Maryanne Amacher, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani and Laurie Spiegel. “Sisters With Transistors” was narrated by Laurie Anderson.
Directed by Lisa Rovner, “Sisters With Transistors” had its world premiere at the 2020 South by Southwest Film Festival and later played at AFI Fest.
“‘Sisters With Transistors’ was a true revelation to us,” said Metrograph Pictures’s head of distribution George Schmalz. “The untold story of the groundbreaking women who brought us some of the most revealing music ever created, ‘Sisters With Transistors’ is an impeccably crafted film that we’re thrilled to bring to audiences nationwide.”
The doc spotlights critical but little-known female leaders of electronic music, including Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire, Wendy Carlos, Maryanne Amacher, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani and Laurie Spiegel. “Sisters With Transistors” was narrated by Laurie Anderson.
- 2/8/2021
- by Rebecca Rubin
- Variety Film + TV
[Editor’s note: “Le Choc du Futur” is one of more than 100 movies originally scheduled to screen at the SXSW Film Festival in March. After the coronavirus outbreak forced the festival to cancel, event organizers partnered with Amazon Prime to make seven of those features available to stream for free through Weds., May 6.]
Turn on just about any pop radio station at any point over the last quarter century, and chances are good that the vast majority of the sounds you’ll be hearing were created on machines. Yet on film, representations of musicmaking are still largely stuck in a more analog era. Maybe that’s due to a lingering generational bias, or maybe watching a girl strap on a Les Paul or sit down at a piano is just inherently more cinematic than watching her tapping away at an 808. Whatever the case, French musician Marc Collin’s debut feature “Le Choc du Futur...
Turn on just about any pop radio station at any point over the last quarter century, and chances are good that the vast majority of the sounds you’ll be hearing were created on machines. Yet on film, representations of musicmaking are still largely stuck in a more analog era. Maybe that’s due to a lingering generational bias, or maybe watching a girl strap on a Les Paul or sit down at a piano is just inherently more cinematic than watching her tapping away at an 808. Whatever the case, French musician Marc Collin’s debut feature “Le Choc du Futur...
- 5/1/2020
- by Andrew Barker
- Variety Film + TV
"What I'm going to do with this instrument is something you've never heard!" 606 Distribution has just released the first official UK trailer for a French indie film titled The Shock of the Future, the feature directorial debut of musician Marc Collin. Collin is best known as the founder, with Olivier Libaux, of the project Nouvelle Vague, and has composed music for a few other films, too. Set in Paris in the late 70s, the film is about a woman named Ana who develops the "sound of the future" - some of the very first electronic music. Featuring the songs of Cerrone, Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, "Collin crafts a heartfelt tribute to the forgotten female electronic musical pioneers such a Delia Derbyshire, Laurie Spiegel and Suzanne Ciani told through the eyes of Ana, played with a ferocious charm by newcomer Alma Jodorowsky." Alma is the granddaughter of Alejandro Jodorowsky, and she...
- 8/15/2019
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Experimental music still constitutes only a speck of music sales, streams, and performances, but it’s never been bigger or easier to find. You can choose between a five-cd Steve Reich boxed set or a ten-cd Steve Reich boxed set. Maybe you’d prefer a dozen discs of Pauline Oliveros. Even less-celebrated experimentalists, such as Laurie Spiegel, are not only being reissued but well received. You’d have to be a pretty minor Minimalist not to have even one record in print. Either that or a genius, pioneering control-freak who spends years preparing each release, like La Monte Young, featured in this week's issue of New York. A near-mint copy of Young’s The Well-Tuned Piano sold on eBay last month for more than $400. (I have a vinyl copy. Offer $350 and it’s yours.) He hasn’t released many records, and the ones he has released are out of print.
- 7/2/2015
- by Rob Tannenbaum
- Vulture
Holly Herndon is the latest in a long line of women electronic-music pioneers. Like Delia Derbyshire, Wendy Carlos, and Laurie Spiegel, she uses digital tools to create music that mines the way technology influences our perception of the world. She’s especially interested in the emotional impact of interpersonal relationships created online. To wit, her new record Platform, out May 19 on 4Ad, includes a love song dedicated to a fictional Nsa agent who’s spying on a paramour through the internet. “Talking about issues of the Nsa can be dry and didactic,” she says. “So I’m using pop as a carrier signal to talk about a real issue.” Traditionally speaking, this sort of heady, highly conceptual stuff doesn’t translate in the mainstream-pop world — the closest she can get is counting Björk and Thom Yorke as notable fans — but the “mainstream,” Herndon says, is a matter of context: “If...
- 4/13/2015
- by Lauretta Charlton
- Vulture
Unless you’ve been living under a rock over the last several months, you are aware that the highly anticipated film The Hunger Games was recently released in theaters. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Ms. Collins probably didn’t realize that she was unleashing onto the world the next Harry Potter or Twilight, a book series that quickly acquires a large rabid fan base and leads to a Hollywood money-making franchise. I am not here to write about the books or the film adaptation which no doubt have received plenty of attention by reviewers, critics and bloggers already. This is about the music of The Hunger Games.
There are two major releases of music for the film. The first is The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. This commercially-driven “companion” soundtrack to the film features current popular artists like Taylor Swift,...
There are two major releases of music for the film. The first is The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. This commercially-driven “companion” soundtrack to the film features current popular artists like Taylor Swift,...
- 4/6/2012
- by Christopher Laplante
- SoundOnSight
Now and then I'll be asking a musician what he/she is listening to "right now" and then cataloging it here for all. It could be an iPod playlist or the pile of records closest to the turntable, as long as it's what they're listening to now, not their most carefully thought out vanity list of all time coolest records. These lists may be somewhat revealing of the musician's own work, but more importantly they're snapshots of taste -- at first of a particular musician, but over time of a larger cultural moment.
Or maybe they're just lists of artists that you might want to check out... here's what Alan Palomo read off of his iPod when asked on the spot (1st one embedded for you):
Orange Juice - "Rip It Up"
Arthur Russell - "Your Motion Says"
Oneohtrix Point Never: "Where Does Time Go?"
Flying Lotus - "Computer...
Or maybe they're just lists of artists that you might want to check out... here's what Alan Palomo read off of his iPod when asked on the spot (1st one embedded for you):
Orange Juice - "Rip It Up"
Arthur Russell - "Your Motion Says"
Oneohtrix Point Never: "Where Does Time Go?"
Flying Lotus - "Computer...
- 8/13/2010
- by Brandon Kim
- ifc.com
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