Review: Sisters With Transistors

SISTER WITH TRANSISTORS

2020 / 84 MIN / UK / Metrograph Pictures

DIRECTOR: LISA ROVNER

Thanks toEMPACI had a chance to see this new film and a talk by the director Lisa Rovner and producer Marcus Werner Hed. This documentary chases the early history of electronic music and the women who were at the heart of it—though you wouldn’t know that from most music histories.features the work of visionary composer and Rensselaer professorPauline Oliverosalongside Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Wendy Carlos, Delia Derbyshire, EMPAC-alum Maryanne Amacher, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani, and Laurie Spiegel.

While it’s likely that you will know some of these artists, unless you’re a real electronic aficionado you’re unlikely to know them all. Even the ones I knew I didn’t always know all the things they were up to. I didn’t know about Barron’s recording of Anaïs Nin…