In the recently released documentary
Sisters with Transistors, beloved avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson poses a provocative question: “How do you exorcise the canon of classical music of misogyny?” She pauses a beat, eventually answering: “With two oscillators, a turntable, and tape delay.”
The issue Anderson raises is a familiar one. In the last few years, electronic music has undergone a discursive reckoning: scholars, producers, DJs, journalists, and select labels and festivals have called for a feminist reimagining of electronic music’s past and present. This narrative shift has spotlit the women behind the boards; those tinkering with tape machines and oscillators, searching for a sense of freedom in the technology that once upended the traditional structures of composition and music.
Film reviews: Sisters with Transistors; Spring Blossom; Homeward
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Sisters With Transistors Review: How Women Pioneered Electronic Music
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Sisters with Transistors: Hidden heroines of electronica
Review: Impeccable documentary retrieves the stories of female musical pioneers
Film Title: Sisters With Transistors
Director: Lisa Rovner
Starring: Laurie Anderson, Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire, Maryanne Amacher, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel
Genre: Documentary
“Why have there been no ‘great’ women composers?” asked accordionist and experimental musician Pauline Oliveros in a 1970 New York Times essay. Why indeed, wonders Sisters With Transistors.
Many people may be familiar with Delia Derbyshire, the electronic music pioneer who composed the theme of Doctor Who in 1963 as part of her duties with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. But how much do you know about Clara Rockmore, the Lithuanian virtuoso who became the first theremin star and who assisted its