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Modulisme: 20260928 Early ElectroMIX 50 (Audio)
https://modular-station.com/modulisme/early-electromix/50/
Jocy de Oliveira – Estória (1981 / Fif)
Beatriz Ferreyra – Demeures aquatiques (1967 / Sub Rosa)
Daria Semegen – Electronic Composition No. 1 (1972 / Columbia Odyssey)
Pauline Oliveros – Alien Bog (1967 / Pogus)
Alice Shields – Dance Piece No.3 (1970 / New World)
Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux – Trakadie (1970/Radio Canada International)
Delia Derbyshire – Pot-au-feu (1968/BBC Radio Enterprises)
Daphné Oram – Episode Metallic (1964/Paradigm)
Early ElectroMIX is a series to document the history of experimental Electronic music from the 50s to the 80s, composers making use of electronic instruments, test equipment, generators of synthetic signals and sounds, tape manipulations... to analog synthesizers...
While our sessions document those who make it today my desire is to transmit some pioneering works which paved the way to what we try to create.
Our 50th entry in the series has to be special and I can't think of anything better than to bring together music pioneering early electronic music dedicated to our « Sisters with transistors ». It is actually a mix I had completed for Dublab radio in 2022 and it's high time to give it visibility via our platform and draw attention to the fact that for decades, the historiography of electroacoustic music has been written from a narrow perspective — centered on a handful of European and North American men: Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, Bayle, Maderna, Berio, and later, Parmegiani or Ferrari. The prevailing narrative often treated this history as a linear progression of technical innovation, driven by male “inventors” of sound technology, with women portrayed as assistants, performers, or anomalies. In reality, the studios of the 1950s and 1960s — from the GRM in Paris to the WDR in Cologne — included many women composers whose creative agency was obscured by institutional hierarchies and publication practices. Those work you will hear in this mix directly challenge this imbalance.
In Latin America, Jocy de Oliveira merged electronics, voice, and performance in visionary multimedia works (Estória, Solitude Trilogy), bridging the personal and the technological. Also from Brazil Beatriz Ferreyra’s work belongs to a larger constellation of women who, often independently and against institutional invisibility, reshaped the possibilities of electronic sound across continents. Daphné Oram in Britain, co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, built her own Oramics machine to literally draw sounds, reclaiming authorship through invention. In North America, Pauline Oliveros redefined listening itself through her Deep Listening practice, framing technology as an extension of perception and empathy. Daria Semegen, working in U.S. academic studios, forged intricate, polyphonic tape compositions (Electronic Composition No. 1) that rivaled the structural complexity of her male contemporaries, yet were rarely canonized.
In Canada, Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux pushed the boundaries of electroacoustic theatre and spatial sound, while in the U.S., Alice Shields explored the expressive and ritual potential of electronic voice transformation — anticipating today’s discussions of posthuman and cyborg identities.
Across their differences, these composers share a radical re-imagining of what electronic music could mean: a space for affect, embodiment, and multiplicity, not merely the demonstration of technical power. Their practices foreground intuition, listening, and transformation — qualities long devalued within a masculinized discourse of control and system. Seen together, they reveal that the history of electroacoustic music is not a single European lineage but a global network of voices: poetic, experimental, and defiantly diverse.
"Modulisme is a platform that aims to support original composing for analog modular systems but not only… A radio program airing music made using modular systems… Each program lasts one hour and is especially dedicated to one composer and features some exclusive music made for us.