Sisters With Transistors

★★★★

Dir: Lisa Rovner MODERN FILMS. C/ST

A film celebrating the unsung heroines of electronic music. “Composers were traditionally old, dead white men – but electronic music gave you the freedom to define any world you wanted,” says Laurie Spiegel, the New York composer whose 1986 Music Mouse instrument was one of the earliest forms of music software. Along with artists like Delia Derbyshire in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Pauline Oliveros at the 1960s San Francisco Tape Music Centre, and Éliane Radigue, who studied musique concrète with Pierre Schaeffer before creating her own beautiful analogue synth-scapes, Spiegel was a vital part of the evolution of electronic music. This film, narrated by Laurie Anderson with rare archive footage, in-depth interviews and experimental sonic textures, is like an extended meditation on those pioneers. One of the most memorable scenes features Daphne Oram painting on filmstrip and coming up with a prototype for MIDI. One to watch again and again.

Lucy O’Brien