There are many ways in which abstract electronic music is more inherently familiar than songs are, key among them the ways in which abstract sounds mimic — or at least appear to mimic — the real world. It is far more simple to draw comparisons between the whir of cicadas and that of certain rudimentary synthesis techniques, for example, than to find something remotely like verse/chorus/verse, let along /bride, in the natural world. Nonetheless, abstract electronic music is widely perceived as alien.
The sounds in the world premiere, one year ago, of the trio Enough!!! contain numerous noises that should be more than familiar — static like rain, throbbing drone like blood in the ear, crunches like feet in snow —Â and not just from the natural world. There is the whine of low-level electrical activity, the echo of long corridors, the rotations of hovering helicopters. The combined effect is what’s alien, a level of drama and intensity far beyond, one would certainly hope, a listener’s personal experience. Enough!!! is CM von Hausswolff, Jason Lescalleet, and Joachim Nordwall, working together in perfect dissonance (MP3). The recording was made at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, New York, on December 20, 2011.
Performance originally posted for free download at touchradio.org.uk. More on the event at issueprojectroom.org.