Disquiet

The performance of the play In the Solitude of Cotton Fields by Bernard-Marie Koltes, earlier this year at the Battersea Arts Centre in London, sure must have been quiet. That’s judging by the score, which its composer, John Chantler, has posted at inventingzero.net. The six MP3s, ranging from a seven and a half minutes to close to eighteen, consist almost entirely of soft, held tones, rarely more than two or three appearing simultaneously. Though the tones and timbres are numerous, the individual sounds have far more in common than they have to distinguish them from each other. They’re round and the appear slowly, occasionally evidencing the rhythm of a sine wave in action, once in a while approaching something that might be taken for friction, but only because of the relative placidity of the overall surroundings. Writes Chandler in his brief description, “Its meant to be fairly quiet – so turn yr system down.”

By Marc Weidenbaum