There are few forms of music that are as simultaneously minimal and life-affirming than acoustic drone. The big names were some of the first to fill my heart when I began my deep dive into the avant-garde, and now more recent projects like Natural Snow Buildings, Pelt, and Toad keep my ears to the heavens. Something unsayable shines in the titanic tones produced by instruments played with human hands and/or breath. Though California-based artist Kaori Suzuki employs a creative process that’s very much exploratory, even scientific, she is not at all averse to embracing that radiant simplicity. 2022’s Music for Modified Melodica made use of the titular instrument and extended techniques to generate a dense stream of sound—Harmonic Series described its sole track, appropriately titled “Air Born of Light,” as “a saturated field of waves, refracting, shifting. Shimmering harmonics’ glistening sheen celestial twinkling”—and Cloud Cycle, a new 10″ from Erototox Decodings continues the trend. Using an amplified reed organ and an effects array, Suzuki composes lambent drifts that warm the soul. The title cut begins with thin, tentative tinctures that unfurl into a thicker shruti box–esque surge, and though its tonality is tightly concentrated its textural weave is like a piece of intricate stained glass, refracting countless colors as it twirls lazily in the light. “Back to Mother Breast” is equally lush, packed with layers and overtones that compound halfway through when a sharp photon beam sets them ablaze. When I first heard Cloud Cycle I was reminded of Tetuzi Akiyama and John Krausbauer’s duo 7″ Gift, and sure enough, not only was it released by the same label but Krausbauer is Suzuki’s spouse and frequent collaborator. I smell a new tradition brewing, one both revivalist and neoteric.
Noise Not Music 