MIFF Session 1: SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS

Delia Derbyshire recounts the cacophony of air raids on her native Coventary. Her then child's mind recieved the tritonal sirens and explosions and the mass of human voices and movement as a kind of music; not a lullaby but music all the same. Later in this absorbing documentary we hear Pauline Oliveros describe lying on the back seat of the family car on a long drive, listening to the motor and how it changed the sound of her parents' voices. That's why this film works so well: it goes to the source idea and demonstrates in organised footage how to construct a history the same way these composers started with field recordings of the world around them or built from basic waveforms to produce music that, until it was aired, was as new as your next breath. And if think that adds up to a lot of squeaks and drones you're right but only partly as the emotional core of these women's compositions is as substantial as a Mozart trio or Wagner opera. It's made with circuit boards but they might as well be frets or keys when you hear the results.

But this film avoids the over-validation that its title might suggest and, having established the male domination of music throughout history, it allows the composers to speak for themselves. Keeping almost entirely to a blend of sourced film from the matching era and archival footage of the composers themselves Sisters with Transistors keeps everything firmly centred and linear. For a parade of artists who might well be unknown to you the structure of this film plays fair by covering each major composer in a named section before allowing them to interweave for its final statements.

While I knew of Delia Derbyshire and Suzanne Ciani I had no idea of Daphne Oram or Pauline Oliveros whose work and thinking are solid pioneering. I'm spending this afternoon seeking their music out. After seeing Oram create a polyphonic composition using hand drawn squiggles on clear cinemfilm and the choral results or listening to her talk about racing the clock to deliver a score for television by grabbing every reel to reel tape recorder she could locate in the greater London area and brainstorming music where there had only been neurones and synapses. As one voice over put it, this work is synthesised from nothing ... but that's not true at all. What you are hearing, whether it's the screams of dying circuit boards (like the score of Forbidden Planet when Morbius dies) boundless drones or the reinterpreted whispers of distant machines you are hearing inspiration and, sometimes, you are hearing genius.

I am delighted to report that the MIFF Play app works perfectly well with a Chromecast (my smart tv has one built in) but (from last year's experience) a laptop plugged into a tv with an HDMI cable does a fine job as well. Working that out might well determine your enjoyment of MIFF this year as it's probably going to be entirely online.