CDOTD 03/10/2025

 Tristan Perich: Open Symmetry (Erased Tapes)

Purchased used at The Government Center

I played a gig for Manny Theiner last night. Improvised saxophone duet preceding Microwaves and The Flying Luttenbachers. Not for the first time, I wound up spending more on CDs and vinyl than I made on the gig. It's true that the pay wasn't amazing, but considering the size of the show I was satisfied making any money at all.

This disc caught my eye, not knowing a thing about it. The description caught me: Open Symmetry for 3 vibraphones and 20-channel 1-bit electronics. And at $5, that's a price point where I'm willing to take a chance.

The 1-bit electronics is an interesting selling point. 1-bit just means there are exactly two levels of amplitude: 100% and 0%. On or off. 

What would it be? Phasing and difference patterns as in Alvin Lucier? Driving minimalism more similar to Reich and Glass? Intentionally or not, the title evokes Feldman's Crippled Symmetry, though with the electronics component I didn't anticipate this to be Feldmanesque. 

The work comes closest to the Reich/Glass side of things. The mallets evoke Reich, the electronics recall Glass' use of Farfisa organs. The piece is tightly composed, so the word "open" in the title might be somewhat misinterpreted. It possibly means there isn't such an adamant pursuit of patterns such as the phasing in Reich's pieces. It does fall into a general category of, I don't know, New Modalism? opened up by those composers and Terry Riley.

I've been meaning to find more newer works and recordings, this being released last year. I realized I've encountered the composer's works before without really knowing who he is. In the Cleveland Museum of Art, I noticed on previous visits they were carrying self-contained electronic compositions playback systems, housed in a CD case. I know now that it's Perich, his 1-Bit Symphony. (I've just been to that same gift shop, and didn't see them carried there any longer.)

There's a comment I make about some of the listening assignments in my college courses, most notably Iannis Xenakis' Concret PH. The work was first presented in the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair, a building Xenakis himself designed. We can listen and appreciate (or not) the piece as a standalone work, but we'll never experience the work in its original presentation. So to this piece: it's perfectly fine to listen to this CD (also on vinyl, but maybe the CD is a better format in this case). The stage photo shows the three vibraphonists with ten pairs of speakers behind them. It must have been an immersive experience in a concert hall. 

I understand that it's an easy out to compare this to Reich or Glass (there is a chordal shift in the final section that definitely recalls the latter), but there probably isn't much getting around that comparison either. And who's to say there isn't room for more composers to explore these general ideas? I wouldn't mistake Perich's composition for those other two guys, just that they're in the same general territory. If anything, it's refreshing to know someone is exploring the more severe side of so-called Minimalism with gusto.