Cook's music sits on some boundaries, coming close to several forms without ever actually meeting up in any way more intimately than brushing the ideas of Edgar Varese or catching the scent of the harsh realities let loose by those Wire expats Dome – each and all regarded from arm's length and free of the Secrets of the Blue Bag. The well-rounded and hanging cul de sacs containing musique concréte, drone, phonography and noise – now and again seeping into ambient, neo-classical and electronic pools – seem present here, nearly and fairly always within earshot, and persistently forming some of the more readily identifiable sensations of hearing and music. Duration, often an overlooked tool of many composers, is the shaping force at work in these juxtapositions, providing scale within and between the three pieces. After the dense airs and legato/sustenudo stretches of 36 minutes of the suspended disbelief in tempered scales that is "steady state theory" comes something not only concréte, but concretely musical. "early academy" performs as the exception here, a live piece with traditionally identifiable musical notes acts out a timid and self-interrupting series of variants, providing a thoughtful and firm yet yielding gelatinous buffer between the towering complexity of "steady state theory" and the scaled down ambitions of "my side your side my side". The abstract took somewhat longer to reach music than it did to dice the visual arts. Due only to the fact that while you can shut your eyes you can't ever really shut your ears, and Cook is here to remind that you shouldn't.
Track Listing
01) steady state theory
02) early academy
03) my side your side my side
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