Re: Cooperation

Item: TransCollaboration
Author: Brian A. Smith

TransCollaboration

(2003)

Reviewed by Brian A. Smith

Discogs Apple Music YouTube Music

Label Uncle Buzz RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2003

ambient electronic

Re: Cooperation is David Cooper Orton of the UK and James Sidlo of the United States. The album is the culmination of five years of exchanged e-mails and tapes that the two mailed back and forth after meeting on an on-line e-mail list for those interested in looping. The CD was created using Sonic Foundry Acid software, which is fairly popular nowadays in programming drum loops as well as other background sounds.

First, an editorial comment: As we get closer and closer to not needing to pick up an instrument to be able to record a disc, is the quality of the work going to decline? Will it become sterile? Will we hear complaints like those of vinyl lovers, that the "music" has become stale and lifeless? There is a difference between pre-programmed music and the sampling and computers used by the likes of Beck or Half-Handed Cloud, or even the tricks Neil Young used to make Trans, and the discs being released nowadays, where
it is no longer necessary to know how to play or sing -- just let the computer do it all.

At any rate, this disc falls into the realm of ambient music. Is it creative? Yes. Tracks 1-4 are very similar, not surprising given their titles of "Thing2", "Thing3", "Thing4", and "And Then This". The others are further additions and alterations with loops.

I have to plead ignorance of the process involved, but one question keeps recurring: could anyone with a good computer and the Sonic Foundry software do this? To me, instrumentals are supposed to do one of two things: create a mood or evoke a scene. In this regard, the album succeeds. Unfortunately, there is little here that distinguishes one track from another.

I admire the fact that in this day and age, computers and mail can create a project like this. I would like to see it done with actual singers and instruments. TransCollaboration is original, but it doesn't work for me --maybe I'm too old.

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