In the way a faint tinkling note can bring out the silence of a landscape, the slight permanences of Hou Guan Yin bring out change. The changes are seen through long-held organ chords, the smallest of clicks swaying alongside a current of short-wave hum or a single scale descending over and over again.
There isn’ much going on in these pieces, but like a still pond, many manage to clearly reflect a variety of images and influences. For one, this album sees Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian – who are responsible for that little ditty the Buddha Machine which so many people, including Brian Eno, seem to fancy – collaborate with renowned Chinese rock musician Dou Wei. Throughout tracks three and four, the scattershot rhythms and crafty shifts in tempo of the latter works to heighten the music’s momentum, while also fleshing out the buoyant melodies packed within the snowy ambiance of Virant and Jian. During these moments, these two poles engage in a duel antagonistic exchange – one offers a sacrifice, which prompts the other to sacrifice in return, producing soundscapes that flow into and through one another.
As though craving a fully fledged integration, though, the majority of tracks settle into a dull puttering – a slow pulsing whirr that is best pushed to the background. Woozy chords, a slow procession of chimes and pixillated fuzz all try to act like analogue’ bringing forth the presence of mountainsides shrouded in early morning mist or cheery tree’ caught from a distance, but the simple, seamless transitions of these works needs to find some punctuation before such images can truly stand out and be recognized.
Max Schaefer
