Eliane Radigue – Jetsun Mila

Originally released on Lovely Music in 1987. Jetsun Mila is inspired by the life of Milarepa, a great yogi and poet of Tibet who lived in the 11th century. The story of his life as told to his closest disciple, Rechungpa, represents one of the most famous works within Tibetan culture. The Mila Kabum, or Namthar, has been translated into several Western languages, including English and French. Eliane Radigue‘s 84-minute musical evocation of Milarepa’s life is in nine sections, with prelude, which correspond to major periods of the life of this famous yogi. The sections flow from one to the other without breaks, one giving birth naturally to the next. Performed (Arp synthesizer) and recorded digitally by Eliane Radigue. Other Music’s Michael Klausman review of the work: “Jetsun Mila eschews text in favor of a purely electronic treating of his storied life via nine passages that slowly and seamlessly flow into one another. Radigue is one of the most perceptually disorienting composers I’ve ever heard, her exploration of inaudible subharmonics and overtones has a way of physically changing the landscape of the room her music inhabits, and it becomes difficult to sort out what the reality is between what you’re perceiving and actually hearing. Jetsun Mila is deeply meditative, with some passages conjuring the random patterns of bells blowing in the stark mountains and valleys of Tibet, while others have the sustained power and near violence of Tibetan ritual horns. Her genius is that she achieves those effects through allusion rather than mimicry, trusting in the listener’s ability to pursue the truth just as Milarepa did with his inscrutable words of wisdom.“