"2/9" is a duo recording by Zhao Cong and Tokyo-based American musician Dave Knapik, recorded by Dave on Oct. 27, 2018, in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
They recorded two sessions that afternoon, the first of which was copied to a vintage TYPE II blank C-90 cassette and then cut into nine pieces. These nine segments were each spooled into empty green shells to produce nine unique variations of the session.
The cassette comes with a download code for the second session. Streaming is not available for this album.
We invited two friends to listen to the first session and describe what they heard, which we hope will be useful when deciding whether to order. It is worth mentioning, in particular, that they didn't know anything about this album, including its final presentation.
Let’s start with what I don’t know, and I’ll tell you, it’s a lot. I don’t know how these noises were made or even who made them. I don’t know what the creator was thinking or what goals they were trying to achieve. I don’t know what rules or ascetics they were following or what influenced them to make the sounds they did. Was this meant as a composed piece or just a coincidental recording of random experimentation? All of the context that we usually apply and which helps us to situate music into neat little boxes is missing here, at least for me, and this becomes irrelevant as the track is reduced to pure noise and me to the act of pure listening.
Rustling, static, low-intensity hum, sounds on the very edge of perception; mechanical sounds and then moments of humanity where you hear a person on the other side switching things on and off, starting and stopping others, moving objects, pushing buttons, twisting knobs. The curious mind wants to connect the image to the sound, to construct a logical chain of cause and effect. I imagine the performer and his various machines, and then as if by accident, or as in the process of falling asleep where you’re not aware of the exact moment you nod off, my mind drifts and I’m lost in the sound. I imagine myself in some distant and alien place. Images of antiquarian machines and extraterrestrial climate fill my consciousness: the rattle of an old film projector, a radio scanning the dial, the purring of a robotic cat. The sound mixes with my inner thoughts turning into daydreams that veer off and then are brought back by a particularly exciting or unaccountable noise.
I’m like the preverbal blind man touching an elephant; I mistake each part for the whole as if failing to comprehend the structure of the piece I concentrate solely on each “note.” By truly understanding one part maybe I can begin to grasp the whole. Now, the shape of the sound, it’s texture, tone, and timber become objects of my analysis as they morph and change. And with careful listening, new tones are discovered just on the edge of audibility. Maybe by trying to map out the entire forest, I failed to ever truly see a single tree.
Nothing seems to build or progress, and when I reached the end I can’t say that I understood the piece or if there is even anything to understand, I fully acknowledge that I might not possess the tools necessary for doing so. The actual meaning may lie more in the process than the final result. By not being able to situate myself or the noises I heard I was forced to listen carefully to each sound and to learn again how to listen became the reward.
by Nevin Domer (Genjing Records, Struggle Session)
