Cage by Cloudland Blue Quartet

During May 2020, I made a “field recording” on each day of the month.

By July, although having used the first four recordings as part of the mixes on the “4th May 2020” album and providing them as bonus downloads, I was still unsure what I might do with the full set.

Then, in mid July, on a rare trip out of the house, I met up with old friend Phil Weitzen and a chance happening occurred.

Phil made me aware of an app which would allow me to use my music library card to download/read magazines.

On doing so and downloading the August 2020 edition of the BBC Music Magazine, I came across an interesting article on John Cage's piece 4'33”.

I did more reading into the piece's origins and influences and a description of its first performance, which took place on 29 August 1952 at Woodstock, New York, including Cage's own reaction to that of the audience – where the sound of their murmured complaints and of their walking out became part of the piece.

The next day, I suddenly realised what to do with my 31 field recordings.

Each could be used to produce a “version” of Cage's 4'33”.

And so I set about this task.

Almost all of the recordings from May, which ranged in length from 5'20” to 66'51”, allowed for a 4'33” edit without further internal edits (although a couple did require blustery wind induced distortion to be removed).

Each of the 4'33”s was then split to produce the requisite three movements of 0'30”, 2'23” and 1'40” and, it seemed, the project, comprising 93 tracks with an overall duration of 141'05”, was complete.

The point of 4'33” is to listen closely and that no musical instrument should be played.

I listened and, on doing so, it seemed I wasn't quite finished.

At first my next thoughts were to treat some of the recordings to produce something new and to name each of the tracks after an individual who had played a part in the creation of the original work. People such as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg and David Tudor (who gave that first performance in 1952).

But then it occurred to me to break the rules of the score and introduce an element of Cage's own work to proceedings.

And so, well into the project and, indeed, having thought it was complete, I started a second phase, for which I listened closely again to each of the opening 30 second movements of the 31 versions of 4'33” I'd created and noted those during which “more happened”.

I chose eight to rework and set about treating them to stretching, slowing down, reversing or a combination of the three and then, in turn, combining the results of each of these processes. Each 30 second element now lasted 10 minutes.

And so I had the basis of an 80 minute CD requiring some “Cage input”.

I then took eight musical haikus for piano by Cage and applied the same treatments to those.

Finally, I combined these two elements, the treated environments and the treated piano pieces, to create the eight final pieces which comprise this collection.

The titles of the final pieces reflect Cage's haiku dedications.

Meanwhile, the original 31 three movement takes of 4'33”, without any musical instrument being played (i.e. true to the score) are now available as 93 bonus tracks to those who download the album.

I hope you will take the time to “listen closely” and enjoy what I've created.

David Reilly, Edinburgh, 3rd August 2020.

A quartet in name only, initially influenced by Fripp & Eno's "No Pussyfooting" and The Velvet Underground's debut, songwriter & soundscaper David Reilly started musicking in 1977 by creating drones using sellotape on the keys of his dad's Bontempi Organ. The subsequent junk shop purchases of an electric guitar & fuzzbox and the acquisition of an old Beatles songbook, led him into songwriting...

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