Original copies, longtime sold out at the label. 4xCD Box Set with 108 pages paperback book with texts by Pierre Schaeffer. Dix Ans d'Essais Radiophoniques Du Studio Au Club D'Essai : 1942-1952 is an essential collection chronicling the formative years of Pierre Schaeffer’s radical sonic experiments in France. Founded in 1942, the Studio d’Essai (later Club d’Essai) began as a center for radio resistance during the Occupation, but quickly became a crucible for creative radiophonic technique and the birthplace of musique concrète. Schaeffer, an engineer, composer, and visionary, used the studio’s resources—mixers, disc-cutting lathes, and, later, tape recorders—to explore the musical potential of recorded sound, moving beyond traditional notation and instruments.

This anthology presents rare recordings from a period when Schaeffer was rethinking the very nature of music. Instead of starting from abstract concepts or written scores, he began with concrete sounds—train whistles, machinery, voices, everyday noises—which he manipulated through playback speed, reversal, cutting, and filtering. These techniques, virtually unknown at the time, allowed Schaeffer to build compositions from the ground up, transforming raw sound into musical material. His early Cinq études de bruits (1948), featured here, are now recognized as the first works of musique concrète and a turning point in the history of electronic music.

Schaeffer’s work at the Studio d’Essai was not only technical but deeply philosophical. He questioned the boundaries between art and technology, sound and music, proposing a new way of listening—what he called “reduced listening”—that focused on the sound object itself, independent of its source or meaning. This shift had profound implications, allowing composers to work directly with recorded sound as a sculptural material and freeing music from the constraints of performance and notation. The influence of Schaeffer’s experiments extended far beyond the studio. He inspired a generation of composers and sound artists - including Pierre Henry, Luc Ferrari, Éliane Radigue - and his concepts of sampling, montage, and acousmatic listening became central to the development of electronic, experimental, and popular music worldwide. The Club d’Essai would later evolve into the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC), the first purpose-built electroacoustic studio, cementing Schaeffer’s role as a pioneer of modern sound art.

Accompanied by extensive documentation, Dix Ans d'Essais Radiophoniques is more than a historical artifact: it is a vivid portrait of a moment when the boundaries of music were redrawn, and a testament to Schaeffer’s enduring legacy as the architect of musique concrète and the godfather of sampling.