Greg Davis, Jeph Jerman, and Albert Casais 6 x 20

If I was given a natural object (shells, wood, stone, etc.) and instructed to make noise for some twenty or so odd minutes I’m sure that at some point what little musical knowledge I have would take over and I would introduce a rhythm or some other type of cyclic pattern - but, this would be contrary to the spirit of 6 x 20.

Several years ago Jeph Jerman came up with the idea of an “animist orchestra” - a live orchestra whose instruments are natural objects (or those constructed from natural objects) coupled with the Zen-like quality of just letting the sounds be themselves by removing, to the greatest extent possible, the intention of making music. In its purest form the sounds, the artists, the audience, and the location become one or, as Jeph writes at his website, it all becomes “a continuous net of sound.”

6 x 20 captures the intrinsic sounds of natural objects without intent - without deliberately trying to force any type of musical structure/organization on them. It comes as a 2 x CD-R with each disc housing three twenty-minute tracks whose sounds are derived entirely from non-purposeful manipulation of organic objects. Concerning how to listen to these two discs - I recommend listening without purpose. Let the sounds come as they will without concerted effort or interpretation.

On the first disc the sounds source for each track was preset with each artist using the same object (water, leaves, and bamboo). On the second disc, each artist was still restricted to using only one sound source, but it could be anything of their choosing (petrified wood-croaker-stone machine, seeds-health balls-pine cones, sea shell-violin-shell drum). Each artist created his sounds individually, without hearing the work of the other artists, after which they were mixed.

The resulting mix of sounds comes across with an unpretentious, unpolished, pristine quality - no beats, no rhythms, no loops - just the natural, familiar sounds of water, wood, leaves, stones, shells, etc. and the associated noises - dripping, rustling, scraping, crackling, shuffling, popping, chimes, and sizzle to name a few. 6 x 20 gives the listener a remarkable taste of what can happen when artist and instrument become one unified force and the sounds just happen.

march 31, 2007 on earlabs.org by Larry Johnson.