Review of Jarrod Fowler

On Jarrod Fowler’s “On Botanic and Rhythmic Structures” and “Translation as Rhythm”


“On Botanic and Rhythmic Structures” contains a number of different elements; I will try to address each in isolation. The packaging, as with all of Jarrods’ pieces, is straightforward yet somewhat confusing. The front contains a number of colorful boxes each with an illustration and description of the organisms featured on the disc. The light-beige insert on which this is printed complements the green and orange of the boxes very well. The back of the insert contains a statement of method and a list of the species of plants used in each track along with their positioning in the stereo field. This gives the overall impression of a catalog, and one initially wonders why this package contains a CD and not a field guide. That is because the CD is, in a sense, a translation of a field guide into a rhythmic system. The organisms featured on the cover and listed on the back are in fact the instruments used to create the music on the disc.
This brings us to the music contained therein. OBRS is essentially a percussion experiment/exploration utilizing the rhythmic action of environmental objects as a template. So, while the layout is ambient, the sound is rigidly percussive, jumping from silence to plant-texture-sound abruptly and then dropping off again. It is hard to tire of or learn the tracks because environmental rhythms are non-repetitive. Furthermore, each plant texture is very detailed, and as one only gets a fraction of a second to hear them, it is hard to fully take in every sound. This brings me to the first paradox of OBRS: it is structurally minimal, yet nearly impossible to digest fully. One might say it is macroscopically minimal while being microscopically (in rhythmic nuance and sonic-texture) maximal.
The second paradox of OBRS has to do with the musical status of the work. As a music producer, I understand that the context of music defines musical structure, and that context is indefinitely malleable. Jarrod has manipulated the context of his music, taking it away from the social realm, and has appropriated instead the catalogue of organisms represented by a field guide. This is similar to hip-hop where producers sample from other contexts (Motown, Jazz, or even Classical music) and reconstitute the material in a totally new context. Instead of sampling from a musical context, however, Jarrod has gone into the world and taken a non-musical object and translated it into a musical object. I believe that, while to many people OBRS may seem inaccessible, this is because they don’t realize that the elements composing OBRS are common elements of the music that they listen to on a regular basis. Even the abrupt nature of the soundscape can be compared to the variations and changes that punctuate classical music, only in OBRS the background to change is not melody but the listener’s own aural environment.

“Translation as Rhythm” is perhaps more dynamic and more challenging than OBRS. To begin again with the packaging, TAR is one of the most visually edible of Jarrod’s works. The two colors that dominate are white and a brownish yellow (I will refer to this latter color as huang because there is no English word for it as far as I know). I believe Jarrod chose white intentionally to play off the white of the plastic CD tray, an element often absent from his releases, which often dwell in clear plastic sleeves. There are four main outer surfaces to the packaging: the front cover is white with huang lettering and contains the title of the work above a block of numbers representing a rhythmic translation. When open, the left inner cover is solid Huang. The CD tray is white and contains a huang CD with the word rhythm in white lettering, with the letters rearranged in all possible combinations. The back cover is an inversion of the front, i.e. solid huang with a block of white numbers, a continuation of the rhythmic translation featured on the front. The front and back covers are inversions of each other, while the inside plays off the solid square of the insert with the circle of the CD, which is in turn delineated by the rows and columns of the word rhythm. In short, Jarrod has covered every inch of the CD packaging with manifestations of the concept, translation as rhythm, at the same time keeping it aesthetically pleasing.
The inside of the booklet contains, for each track, a text and/or graphic supplement, as well as an explanation of what is being translated, how it is being translated, and a description of the text/graphic supplement. Jarrod is being very generous to the listener here, but really he has to be. The nature of TAR is very unusual, and one must look at the supplement and read the explanation before and during the listening experience in order to understand what is going on. Again Jarrod’s work is very straightforward but also very confusing if one expects instant revelation without effort.
As for the listening experience, I found it very challenging but also very humorous. I didn’t expect to, but I laughed a lot while listening through the CD. Wittgenstein becomes a “decelerating series of clicks,” which I’m sure he would have loved, and James Whitehead’s “digital translation of unedited data” becomes pure noise, a generous “fuck you” to romantic art. I found the use of text-to-speech to be highly ironic, yet fitting, and I had fun on track four trying to pay attention to both left and right voices as they talked about one another. Track seven is a soothing atmospheric collection of field recordings that exist as a translation of locations on a map. After listening to the clicks, computer voices and static of the earlier tracks, the peaceful sublimity of track seven is a welcome experience, and adds a very open, spatial and concrete element to the concept of TAR. The last track is a text-to-speech summary of the contents of the CD, which declares that it “cannot logically exist as a translation of itself.” This reminds me of the 11th dimension theory: we cannot conceive of a dimension that would encompass the 11th because it contains every possible manifestation of every possible universe.
The question that TAR raises, whether the organization of qualitative transformations is a rhythmic act or sets off a series of rhythmic occurrences, is an interesting one and in truth cannot fully be addressed by language.