I bought you a housewarming gift.
But aren’t you the one who’s moving in?
Well then I bought it for both of us.
Another CD. Two!
I couldn’t decide so I ordered both. I’ve been reading about them online and I thought they might be of interest. You don’t have them do you?
No. Never heard of either of them. Shall we put one on?
You go ahead. I’m going to finish unpacking, then I’ll start lunch.
Lucian tore off the plastic wrapping and put the CD in the player. From the cover he could not identify if it was a band or solo musician, and whether they called themselves ovalprocess or that was the title of the album.
As soon as the music started Lucian knew it was going to be unlike anything he had heard before. Electronic. Unharmonic. Full of unruly clicks and ticks and beeps. All bubbling up with no discernable melody or structure. For a moment he thought the CD was skipping, but then the suspect glitch became incorporated into the composition and Lucian realised a strange, untutored creativity was at play. One with a significant ingenuity at its core that could recontextualise microscopic fluctuations and digital hissing into a ritualistic noise as oddly tender as it was astonishingly futuristic. At first the effect was disorientating. Like an electrical storm erupting inside the house. Setting off waves of overdriven static and whistling fireworks in all directions. But as the album progressed, and Lucian’s ears acclimatised to the astringent alien electronics, he began to notice a sculptural technique at work, and a maverick chamber music. One where regular metre was obliterated, and margins were redrawn using murky melodic threads and pulsating dissonance. It was a psychedelic experiment by an unforgiving machine. A sensory overload of combustible details and digital scrapings welded together with an abstract logic to deliver a radiant drone. A delineation of sound. A volatile spasm. Harmonically complex and elaborately constructed, the album seemed formless and unfiltered until the polyrhythmic atmosphere congealed into a sonic realm of oscillating vibrancy: unpredictable salvos; nettled tones; software eruptions and snaking voltage. Not a single noise betrayed traceable ancestry with traditional instrumentation. The rattling compositions sounded entirely computer generated, yet were nonetheless capable of conveying genuine moments of ache and bliss. Lucian realised it was as much about unlocking the rhythms hidden within the torrent of sound as it was about absorbing the mercurial forms and tonal fanfares. He observed the interminable repetition of squawking, snarling and squealing gradually shift in nature to unveil the secret orchestration of the inner machine. And comprehended how the sweeping imagination inherent in the cyclical patterns and interlocking algorithms heralded the arrival of a stunning mutant beauty.
It was not the possessions Lucian would leave behind that made death so difficult to accept. It was things like this. The music he had not yet heard. The books he had not yet read. Had not yet been written. All the things he would miss out on because he would be no longer conscious. It seemed so unfair that he should stop living while the rest of the world continued to grow. He was not tired. Lucian felt he had the energy of a twenty year old. So why couldn’t he stay awake forever and see what was going to happen?
What’s the new CD like? asked Michael as he returned to the sunroom.
Lucian looked up and blinked away his tears. It’s…