We don’t often see grapefruit-colored vinyl, but on this release, it fits, matching not only the obi strip but the name of Yoko Ono’s book of text scores. Last year Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl and Macie Stewart collaborated on Stewart’s When the Distance Is Blue, and BODY SOUND continues their explorations of synesthetic sound.
These tracks began as improvisations for viola, cello, violin and voice, but were shaped in the studio with analog tape, producing a natural synthesis. The very title BODY SOUND refers not only to the trio’s bodies, interacting with instruments and spaces, but the body of sound that is created when sources mingle. Ono’s book contributes the track titles, which themselves prompt meditation on their relationships with each other and their surrounding titles: a fill-in for the artists themselves.
“dawn | pulse” is a lovely, languid beginning, like the stretching of hands at the beginning of the day, the recognition of one’s pulse, the nature of being alive. Perhaps one might even eat a grapefruit. Slow yet precise, the piece shifts subtly from drone to slender suite. When the women’s voice emerge mid-piece, a spiritual undertone begins to develop; the harmonic energy is akin to that of a small choir.
Light percussion adds surprising form to “laundry | blood,” whose title suggests everything from daily chores to disposing of evidence. What sounds like drums turns out to be Kohl’s barrette-prepared cello. And “chewing gum,” which lacks a balancing noun, is a brief 39 seconds of light distortion, the notes still audible, yet altered. The trio writes of the difference between playing music in “a small neighborhood bar and an ornate church.” In one setting, the sound retracts; in another it expands. One imagines the trio would be pleased should listeners experiment, playing the album on an iPod, in the car, on a home stereo, even on a boom box.
One of the album’s most transcendent moments arrives toward the end of “stone | piece,” when the trio’s voices take the places of their instruments, set atop a curling loop of abraded tape. The contrast between past and present lends the piece a piece a sweet nostalgic tension, broken by the sudden attack of “burning | counting (sleeping).” It will be interesting to see where this piece lands on the vinyl, as its positioning will affect the listening experience.
“cough | laugh” seeps into “snow | touch” with nary a wrinkle, creating a quadrant of words to match the quadrant of sounds. After numerous plays, the conversation buried in the drone still sounds as if it is coming from outside the record; or is it a manual tape experiment? The blurring of lines creates a disconcerting, three-dimensional effect. It’s only fitting that the closing piece is titled “fog | mirror,” as the diptych seems to imply opposites, until one realizes that even a mirror can distort, and that ancient mirrors always distorted, sparking the phrase, through a glass, darkly. The music asks clever questions about the line between improvisation and composition, but one aspect is abundantly clear: these performers share a natural alchemy, which makes their body sound a unified whole. (Richard Allen)