It won the grand prize at Fame 2021, the international music film festival: "Sisters with Transistors", a documentary by Lisa Rovner, is well worth a look and is part of the movement to rediscover and recognise the pioneers of electronic music. Better late than never!

There are many names. Clara Rockmore, the great theremin virtuoso, began her career in the 1930s. Daphne Oram was a British pioneer of musique concrète. The audacious Bebe Barron is responsible for experiments on magnetic tape... But there are also Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel, Maryanne Amacher, Wendy Carlos... Names, charismatic personalities, most of them unknown to the public, to whom the documentary "Sisters with Transistors" at last gives the floor.

Lisa Rovner has made a committed, resolutely feminist film, a documentary that does justice to the pioneers of electronic music and the sonic horizons they have opened up since the 1930s, building bridges between pop culture and experimental music, which is essentially more confidential. This vibrant account is told by a choice narrator who knows what she is talking about: the American Laurie Anderson, one of the great figures of musical experimentation.

The story is illustrated with beautiful archives, in black and white and in colour, which take us to the heart of the studio-laboratories, in a tangle of multicoloured cables, tape scraps, deliciously vintage computers, oscillators and giant synthesizers. In parallel, the website sisterswithtransistors. com details the history of the project and the filming, offers a biography of each of the musicians, allows you to watch the trailer and, above all, to rent this independent film by streaming for 48 hours. Not to be missed!

Suzanne Gervais