Elements by Toshimaru Nakamura and David Lee Myers
When using a sound mixing board, the manual typically includes a clear warning: don’t connect the output to the input. However, this prohibition only inspired Japanese sound artist Toshimaru Nakamura to break the rules. Creating a self-sustaining loop, Nakamura discovered a method of using the soundboard’s faders and dials to manipulate the feedback and construct music, calling this “new instrument” the No-Input Mixing Board.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, NYC sound and visual artist David Lee Myers pursued the creation of a not dissimilar device. Cracking open analog synthesizers and rewiring them to his own specifications, Myers has iteratively developed the sound-bending tool he calls the Feedback Machine.
These two pioneers of rule-breaking sound design combine their idiosyncratic methods on the collaborative album Elements. Their generative technique lies less in creation and more in curation. Myers describes this symbiotic relationship between himself and his instruments, “the sounds which are presented are neither completely random science nor the gesture of an artist's hand, but something between the two..." The machinery produces its own language, as Myers and Nakamura serve as translators who identify patterns to mold the buzzing feedback and self-referential outputs into music. The instruments are just as involved in the process as the musicians.
On paper, the NIMB and the Feedback Machine seem like the perfect tools to create impenetrable walls of harsh noise and heavy distortion, but Nakamura and Myers coax subdued tones and delicate melodies from their instruments. Many of the tracks feature arrangements of subtle electronic notes washed over with a low hum, lending a sense of quietude that is reminiscent of Nakamura’s early involvement in Tokyo’s onkyo movement. Each carefully produced track encourages focused attention from moment to moment, the listener mindfully observing each sound building on itself before fizzling out within the circuitry.
