- object blue and Ben Vince feature on a John Cage-inspired compilation.
- John Cage spent some of the summer of 1983 tracing the outlines of 15 stones onto paper. He was inspired to do so by the Ryoanji Temple rock garden, set in a rectangular landscape of raked sand, in Kyoto, Japan. During this time, the composer began writing a piece based on this contour-tracing method. Each musician was meant to choose one sound to play for the piece's duration, independent from the other players, and then play in "Korean unison." (Cage explained that this meant "the practice of playing the same thing but not at precisely the same time.") There is no mention of Cage in the jargony statement that accompanies Cipher, the first compilation by the experimental party and label c.a.n.v.a.s. But the prompts given to the artists here—to compose collaboratively, to compose graphically, and to compose with the Ryoanji garden in mind—contain traces of key Cageian practices.
Flora Yin-Wong uses this final prompt to construct "Murmures," the compilation's second track. This stark composition balances delicacy and darkness by weaving airy bells, wind chimes and a string instrument that sounds barely grazed by the hand playing it. It then flips to a lower register with a few bass notes, along with a deep and artificial whirring sound. The effect is of a peace akin to enjoying the breeze despite knowing it will rain soon. Michael Speers riffs on the same Ryoanji prompt to more discordant ends with "îË |I O Æ B." A single, steady note over crackling white noise begins to resemble the nagging tone my car makes when I've forgotten to put my seatbelt on. Vague anxiety dissolves into foam when the song turns toward ASMR, invoking unnameable sounds that feel as if they are tickling the inside of my mind. At this point, one might feel firmly situated in this strange garden. If Yin-Wong's "Murmures" gives the atmosphere of a physical environment, Speers' track provided the interior experience.
Cipher's midpoint begins to stray from the out-of-body mood. Following the prompt to collaborate, Ashley Paul and Olan Monk began by texting each other fragments of work to construct their respective songs. But the banal synth lines of Monk's track is a particularly jarring departure from the compilation's aesthetic. A conceptual project might not aim for aesthetic consistency, but "Seph" seems sealed off from the rest of Cipher. The compilation veers back into its lane with object blue's meditation on Ryoanji, "Fourteen Boulders, Fifteen Stones." Banging on the uppermost octave of a piano has never sounded so good. I long to hear this light-footed track dropped in a bass-heavy set, so off-kilter, deceptively delicate and enjoyably weird. This gentle avalanche was made by allowing the algorithms and sequences to work on their own, in a sense letting the sand fall where it may without forcing an all-encompassing vision or design. And although it's not an algorithm's song, Ben Vince's "Fading In Panoramic" sounds like automatic free jazz. It's both noisy and fun.
The compilation's structure doesn't suit its intent to resist "the codification of music" and questioning "the hegemony of authorship." By piggybacking onto Cage's experiments, it tries to insert itself into a specific canon of minimalism from a few decades past. But just because the concept is flimsy doesn't mean the works aren't beautiful. Each is a freeform creation that might be appreciated individually. I'm reminded of the Japanese tradition of appreciating suiseki, stones that are naturally shaped by the elements in strange and subtle ways to become objects for contemplation. Listening to much of this album for what it is, without getting caught up in what it wanted to be, ends up being a much more rewarding experience.
Tracklist01. Xao - Quintal
02. Flora Yin-Wong - Murmures
03. Ausschuss - Frontier Control
04. Michael Speers - îË |I O Æ B
05. Ashley Paul - Sleep Walker
06. Lugh - Hot Mess
07. Olan Monk - Seph
08. Ben Vince - Fading In Panoramic
09. object blue - Fourteen Boulders, Fifteen Stones