Subverting unpleasant environmental sounds for musical purposes is not a novel proposition. From the Futurists and musique concrète composers during the start and middle of the 20th century to contemporary noise ambient explorations like The Incidental Crack’s uncanny 2021 album Municipal Music, mundane, especially urban noises have long stimulated the minds of various experimentalists.
But where Luigi Russolo’s intonarumori and the music of modern noise artists – often his spiritual followers – indulged in noise’s negative manifestations for transgressive effect, Chicago-based cellist, sound artist, and composer Lia Kohl has a more joyful idea in mind. Similar to Marie Thompson, who in her book Beyond Unwanted Sound suggests that noises themselves are never intrinsically negative or positive, Kohl extracts sounds with disparate sonic and affective qualities from our everyday environments, then places them at the centre of her compositions.
Instead of reaching for commonly used motifs – the drone of engines and machinery has become commonplace enough to be soothing – she picks sounds that are still taboo, bordering between the amusing, irritating and infuriating. Stopping short of sampling all the wonderful tumult of neighbours retiling their bathroom or the babble of an open space office, on Normal Sounds we hear an assortment of buzzing tennis court floodlights, 3:00 AM car alarms, aeroplane commotion, and supermarket ambience.
Kohl leaves the sampled sounds intact and unembellished, but changes their surroundings, reframing them and shifting the listener’s perception of their characteristics. The arrhythmic, migraine-inducing hum of the titular beam from ‘Tennis Court Light, Snow’ becomes a shimmering central pillar of the cut, while cello phrases harmonise with and swarm around it as if locked in a ritual fire dance. Later, the crunch of footfall in the snow diffuses the piece into spectral ambient territories, but maintains its thrilling energy.
On ‘Car Alarm, Turn Signal’, Ka Baird’s flute licks and electronics ricochet like fireflies in love across a nocturnal urban soundscape. The incessant, undulating blare of a car alarm turns into a woodwind-evoking melody, while the cello’s percussive plucks fill the space between like a clock ticking in an empty room in the dead of night. In what is perhaps a faint callback to Kohl’s manipulation of radio transmissions on 2023’s The Ceiling Reposes, the piece fades out on the back of a smooth jazz saxophone crooning gently from a car audio system.
At times, Kohl’s cello and synthesisers silhouette and imitate the environmental sounds, not without a slight derisive undercurrent. At others, she engages in abstract dialogue, as if gently herding the sounds into their new contexts. On the gorgeous ‘Ice Cream Truck, Tornado Siren’, the jarring melodies of a syrupy jingle and the haunting wails of a tornado siren mesh with trilling synths into something Laurie Spiegel or, more recently, Kristen Roos would juice from a vintage MIDI-based music making software.
Meanwhile, ‘Car Horns’ takes a more textural approach, turning a wall of rush hour car klaxons into a sustained backdrop. Patrick Shiroishi’s exquisitely plaintive saxophone and Kohl’s long bowed cello lines float down on this scenery like angelic light from heaven, dispelling the tension of the traffic situation.
Throughout, the moods are volatile just as our everyday routines are: moments of simple beauty making way for anxious introspection and escapist whimsy. ‘Plane’ toys with aeroplane seat belt warnings and video game sounds that wouldn’t feel out of place on labels devoted to colourful creativity like Hausu Mountain or Orange Milk. Conversely, the lovely closer ‘Ignition, Sneakers’ lets a key-in-ignition warning chime just a bit too long – as if having one last laugh while testing our patience.
