You wake trapped in a glass box. As you sit up a twinkly digital noise sounds. You turn your head, which triggers another noise. As you swing your feet to the floor yet more noises sound. Intrigued but baffled you pace the box, exploring the corners, and as you touch the glass, different lights and sounds blink in and out of your perception. After some time in the box, you become adept at manipulating the random sounds and lights until there is a form of structure. It isn’t music…more like a sonic puzzle that no-one has the answer too or a synaesthetic disco for malfunctioning androids.
Cyclea’s E.P is the first release from Jonathan Jindra, who previously released music as Trills (two of whose albums I reviewed previously) and bloody good music it was too. It takes some courage to abandon a successful name and strike out anew, especially with something as abstract as this. To give it some background, this is the audio part of an audio visual project that sounds frankly baffling. Here is the description : “a surround-sound multimedia installation divided into multiple rooms and transmission stations throughout El Rincon which are sonically synced. Over a dozen projectors & televisions line the walls with an array of video art and imagery filmed from the environment surrounding the projector or television in a cyclical array of corresponding imprinted realities. The event will be filmed and turned into another video art piece in an attempt to establish the interconnection of a reflexive sensory language.”
I could probably work out what this means but I don’t feel any need to. I’m quite happy listening to bleepy ping-pong noises, weird almost sounds and the man who says “Yeah”. Distinctly weird but totally engrossing.
Kim Monaghan
