Trilogie de la Mort (Trilogy on Death)

Released

“Trilogy on Death” sounds like the title of a late ’60s European horror movie, or maybe a set of dungeon synth cassettes, but these three works, each running between 50 and 60 minutes and created between 1985 and 1993 using Radigue’s beloved ARP 2500 synthesizer, are neither terrifying nor particularly morbid or gloomy. In fact, they shimmer with life. As so often with Radigue’s music, transitions are present but they’re so gradual that you never feel like anything has changed; it seems as though the music has always been hissing and humming in exactly this way, and the high-pitched wavering tones that preceded the current staticky low-end rumble are like something you dreamed the night before. An overtly melodic passage can be heard partway through “Kaema,” but only through one speaker, and it’s muffled, like something your neighbor is listening to, not you.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
Wisdom of Elders cover

Wisdom of Elders

Shabaka & the Ancestors
Wormwood cover

Wormwood

The Residents
10 cover

10

Supersilent
Live Volume V cover

Live Volume V

Fred Anderson
This Is Our Music cover

This Is Our Music

The Ornette Coleman Quartet
Bending Bridges cover

Bending Bridges

Mary Halvorson Quintet
Sound cover

Sound

Roscoe Mitchell Sextet
The Complete Machine Gun Sessions cover

The Complete Machine Gun Sessions

The Peter Brötzmann Octet
Perfect Lives cover

Perfect Lives

Robert Ashley
Ride the Skies cover

Ride the Skies

Lightning Bolt