Michael Pisaro / Greg Stuart - ricefall (2) (Gravity Wave 001)

Michael Pisaro's music has changed my way of listening to sounds completely. And especially after listening to "ricefall (2)", my ears were opened more widely for the subtle sounds in the environment that I used to miss before - like the almost inaudible sounds of water quietly running through the pipe over the ceiling suddenly started jumping into my consciousness, with a hint of a harmony formed by faint echoes. This is the thing that always fascinates me when I listen to "ricefall (2)". Behind the thick or thin wall of the sounds of rice falling at different speeds on the surfaces of 64 percussion instruments (sometimes it sounds like an intense squall, sometimes it sounds like a sparse raindrop hitting on the roof gently), some microscopic harmonies echoed behind the sounds of the rice falling gradually start to grow in my ears over the course of the 72 minute piece - like some transparent fragments of lights start to turn to subtle colors. The harmonies behind the rice fall sounds are almost inaudible - like flickers of tiny lights, but the subtlety and the distant feel (which feels like the echoes were coming somewhere far distant from the reality) attract me, gluing me to the sounds throughout the whole piece.

The simple sounds of falling rice gradually start to be heard as more musical every time I listen - like it was performed by an orchestra (of gravity, rice, and many different surfaces of percussion instruments, with Greg Stuart as the conductor.) The way the density and sparseness of the falling rice changes minute by minute is mesmerizing - it was thoughtfully composed by Michael Pisaro to give the whole piece a perfect balance, not to fall into a chaotic mess at all. It evokes in me a pure white light that keeps changing its brightness and softness over the course of time - sometimes a dazzlingly powerful sunlight, sometimes soft, delicate flickers of light. The ever-changing textures of sounds give me a positive feel of tremendous vitality of life and strong awareness. Greg Stuart's delicate and skillful control of dropping rice brilliantly realizes Pisaro's composition as a phenomenal piece of music, using the simple power of gravity.