Talking Drum

by Chris Brown
Pogus Productions, Chester, NY, 2005
Audio-CD, Pogus P21034-2, $14.00
Distributor’s Website: http://www.pogus.com/.

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium

stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be

The full title of this CD might be ‘Talking Drum. Binaural motion recordings composed as a dialogue of distances: live recordings of music for electronic network music ensemble juxtaposed with location recordings of traditional music and environmental soundscapes’. Which means that Chris Brown used a pair of microphones mounted on the earpieces of his glasses to record the sounds that literally reached his ears while walking through various locations and used them as an input for an elaborate human-machine collaboration. Four computers interact, under the coordination of a fifth one, with the original material and live musicians. "While the performance of the entire system is synchronized by one computer, each computer station generates independent results using genetic-programming algorithms which are affected by acoustic musicians’ performances. Each station in the space "grows" its own rhythmic response to the situation, like similar plants growing differently in adjustment to their locations in an environment" (from the CD liner).

In a real time performance, the audience moves freely between the stations and the loudspeakers to appreciate fully the polyrhythmic quality of the music: to experience the effects of different groups of players playing their own rhythms in separate locations. The sounds mingle without becoming (con)fused and the ear——or the mind——can keep track of each source as well as the ensemble, as happens in polyphonic compositions.

Chris Brown performed Talking Drum several times in America and Europe, collaborating with different computer musicians and instrumentalists. This recording compiles moments from these performances and the recordings that inspired their creation into one continuous piece. The music evokes locations across the globe, from Bali or Cuba to San Francisco and Montreal, effectively creating a global dialogue and illustrating a seemingly universal interest in the unexpected trance-inducing effects of overlaying patterns.

Chris Brown (b. 1953), was born and raised in Chicago and moved to California to study electronic music with Gordon Mumma and composition with William Brooks at University of California--Santa Cruz, and with David Rosenboom at Mills College. He was active early in his career as an inventor and builder of electroacoustic instruments; he has also performed widely as an improvisor and pianist with such groups as "Room" and the "Glenn Spearman Double Trio". He also recorded performances of music by Henry Cowell, Luc Ferrari, and John Zorn. He teaches Composition and Electronic Music at Mills College in Oakland, where he is Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM).