BOOK ONE : LISTENERS AND READERS

:: SPRING 2001

34 :: calls and responses :: 4/6/01

The LAMPO guy gets up and gives an introduction, mentions some upcoming shows. Phill Niblock is coming to town — Thomas and Lydia exchange anticipatory glances. Thomas notes how good that feels, to have a particular name excite him, and to not have to explain that excitement, to not have to translate it into words. To be able to communicate it just by looking over and seeing it reflected back. In the eyes of another. The LAMPO guy mentions that tonight Mirror will be accompanied by Jim O'Rourke. This is a complete surprise. Thomas and Lydia exchange glances again.

The set starts off quietly, with the sounds of twittering birds. Thomas closes his eyes and shifts his head into listeningspace. He hears the birdsong as a complex acoustic network, a series of calls and responses. Deep in the mix are low hums, a gathering thrumming. A machine in the forest. The juxtaposition of these sounds creates a sonic tension. Opens a line of inquiry within the piece. Turns the sounds into an investigation of an idea, an exploration of the relationship between nature and technology. The sounds you put together reveal the way you think about the world. (This doesn't change when you have three people putting together sounds. Three people just organize thoughts in the manner of a conversation, rather than in the manner of introspection. This thought gives him a dim burst of insight to some of his speculations on narcissism, but he doesn't follow up on that right now; he doesn't want to distract himself from the listening.)

Lydia listens as well. This pastoral phase reminds her of the placid intros to some techno songs, reminds her of being sixteen and hanging out at raves in Detroit. Chill-out rooms soundtracked with chirping birds and trickling water. She half-expects some electro drumbeat to kick in any second. She did techno / rave music throughout high school (she got into it from buying film soundtracks in junior high), lived the whole pacifier / candy-necklace lifestyle for a few years. She'd grown bored with that by the time she got into college, or, if not bored, she'd at least realized that a threshhold had been reached: she'd gone into the scene as far as she was going to go. She'd seen her share of cute little X pixies in suspicious relationships with skanky undead-hippie guys in their forties; she'd seen her share of friends with nervous breakdowns. If that was what happened to people who went further into the scene, she wasn't going to go any further in. She could have stayed in that world, developed a holding pattern of some kind, but a sense of exploration had drawn her in, and with those explorations completed, she felt like she could just walk away from it.

In Bloomington she began to hang out with the music college people; they were getting their hands on some minimalist composer stuff: Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley. Years on the dancefloor had taught her ear to follow shifting fields of repeating patterns, and she connected with the work of those composers immediately. It predated techno and was simultaneously more complex than it, more rewarding to close listening. She spent many hours in college lying on the floor, tripping on acid, watching the music build ornate Persian rugs in her optic center. From there it wasn't long until she found her way into drone, and from there she found Thomas' website, and she read his reviews of performances and those made her hungry for Chicago. When she graduated with her degree in communications (class of 2000) she didn't have much of a plan, but Marvin and Paul were planning to move up to Chicago, and they were looking for a third person, so she decided— why not?

She's a bit surprised to be here with Thomas. She didn't expect that he would be welcoming to her e-mail. She still sort of thinks of the Web as being part of the media, and so thinks the people who produce its material should be inaccessible, tied into their hierarchical system of production. It's only been recently that she's realized that no such hierarchy exists on the Web, that the people who produce for it aim for connections. For fuck's sake, Thomas' e-mail address was on every single page of the site: how could she have thought that he wanted anything but contact?

Satisfied that she's figured something out, she lies down on the floor and returns her attention to the music, which is still birds— a complicated mosaic of voices—