Last night I remembered how much I love sound in all its guises.
A friend was down in London and had tickets for a performance of John Cage’s Indeterminacy, a series of short stories Cage wrote that were to be accompanied by improvisations from other musicians. Neither party is meant to pay attention to the other and the results shouldn’t be in anyway an attempt to soundtrack the stories that are read out: all taking a minute each. Prior to the performance of Indeterminacy a few musicians demonstrated some Cage improvisations.

The trombone freestyle of Alan Tomlinson was trance like, as he spun, spat, salivated and scorched notes from his trombone, an instrument I had previously only associated with coal mining bands from northern England. Basically put, they sound to me like the musical equivalent of a drizzly Sunday afternoon. That said, Tomlinson’s performance of Solo for Sliding Trombone was anything but grey, the sounds better described as invisible hallucinations. Wild-style. Just before the interval there was a performance of Cage’s Water Walk, a piece he himself performed on TV back in 1960. A vase of roses being watered in a bathtub while a steamer fires a geyser into the air. A blender full of ice-cubes whirring noisely while a rubber duck squeaks over a tape-loop.

Fun, surprising, abstract but precise. Water Walk was surreal enough without the edition of it being performed on this occasion by Harry Hill. It was a sight I’d never imagined witnessing and one I doubt I’ll ever see again. Interval over, the evening drew to a close with a 40 minute rendition of Indeterminacy, narrated by long-standing comedian and writer Stewart Lee, a figurehead of the alternative comedy movement of the ’80s. As Lee began his narrations a range of sounds began emanating from the assorted toys, objects and instruments situated around musicians Tania Chen and Steve Beresford.

Seeing two people randomly smash out sounds from everything from an iPhone to a packet of pasta was like watching some ancient Pagan ritual. A little stupid, a little fascinating and a little magnetic. Judging from the stories in Indeterminacy, Cage was a big fan of mushrooms. We couldn’t decide which type he was most a fan of, but I’m going to make assumptions and go with the magic variety, I guess the abundance of abstraction has got to come from somewhere. Deep down though, I think I have to come to terms with the fact that someone could potentially be so avant-garde without the need for psychotropic substances.

The beauty of watching/listening/playing Cage’s work lies in the inherent physicality of performing it. Unlike classical compositions, Cage’s work makes the audience feel like a participant instead of just a spectator. Even after the performance was over I was drawn to touch and play with the table of tricks that Chen had been working from, briefly discussing the objects and their origins, and then the elitism of mustached attendees from the night when I bumped into her the following day.

Chen’s enthusiasm for sound is infectious, and her variety of music and sound producing iPhone apps, expansive. It was interesting to learn more about her work on her website, where you can also see her recent projects and watch performances on her blog. Night over, Indeterminacy was an entertaining marriage between words and sound, two things I’ve always enjoyed exploring, and two things I hope to pair as successfully as Cage in future projects.