The processes at work in Cory Allen’s Hearing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Hears for Quiet Design seem deceptively simple, as though the pretty forms of the five pieces here are the result of fortunate accident, created by the haphazard arrangement of fragile tones and intervals. And perhaps that is just how it is – the liner notes refer to “organic motion” and the use of “non-generative compositional rules” to allow an “open, organic sound-field which remains present while being absent… suspended in a system with no edges”. Allen’s processes resist interpretation, but the beautiful immediacy of his music renders such analysis unnecessary.
The point about “a system with no edges” seems particularly appropriate, as shifting patterns of gauzy electronic clicks and marimba-like plonks gently unfurl, like the branches of ferns, always unique yet always familiar. In this sense too it seems distinctly generative, like Eno’s Thursday Afternoon installation, and while Allen has dedicated the work to installation artist Robert Irwin it more closely recalls the suspended angles of an Alexander Calder sculpture. There’s a resemblance to the notes of Oren Ambarchi in his heavier tones, and to Erik Griswold’s Wallpaper Music in arrangement, but Allen favours even less development. This is music best enjoyed supine, passively succumbing to the directionless flow much as a leaf to the breeze.
Joshua Meggitt
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