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Ken Ikeda, "Merge"
This music could give a new meaning to the word "accessible." On one hand, Merge is an album constructed from Ikeda's 13-year-old "sound diary," music created to "reflect [his] everyday life," and, therefore, arguably more approachable than something based, say, around a chapter from Ulysses or the story of a mythical lady buying a stairway to heaven. Music from the diary of a living, breathing human is necessarily less demanding than music involving the imagist pile-ups of fictional or narrative songwriting. True, any piece of music will impose a kind of narrative simply by progressing in real time, and, I will admit that upon first listening to Merge, I found myself unconsciously trying to reconstruct the events which inspired such a cold, often unsettling backdrop.Touch
I was soon aware, however, of something beyond simple documentation at work. Any attempt to recover the specific inspirations for Ikeda's snail-paced sine tone collages would be next to impossible anyway, and luckily this is not the artist's desire. Instead, Merge attempts a widening of communication lines between musician and audience, an environment in which little stands in the way of my grasping a piece of Ikeda's day (or night), and making it entirely my own. The sine waves play a big part in this effect. Music produced by pure tone generators avoids the dialogue among sources that occurs with turntable or sample-based music, as well as the idiosyncratic quiver of the guitarist's hand. While not "accessible" in the traditional sense, pure sound needs no preamble; it carries no baggage and is therefore easier to approach on neutral ground, come what may. Ikeda's tones ride the surface for most of Merge, guarding against the possibility of giving the music anything less than full attention. They are not forceful, however, and rarely occupy fixed states, oscillating smoothly between the uncomfortable and the inviting at the urge of the personality guiding them. Each song has its own set of droning waveforms blanketing all other activity in a way that is subtle enough to allow the background to filter through, without establishing a set relationship between the two. It?s almost as if the sine tones exist to prime the ear, making it more receptive to the abstract bell patterns and simulated string flourishes behind. The continual flux of tonal relationships, with sine tones becoming at once stage and concealing pocket for the delicate background, creates a listening experience valuable more for its process than for any lasting resonance. The relatively short songs offer concise, inviting trips through atmospheres that feel consistently new, while at the same time very personal. I have listened to Merge dozens of times and still encounter its strange pull in new ways.
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