The advent of affordable digital editing, synthesis, and sound processing in the 1990s broke open the gates of paradise to sonic experimenters. After gestating in cassette culture and other obscure musical inlets, four genres finally flowered: noise, plunderphonics, field recordings, and lowercase sound.
Coined by sound artist Steve Roden, lowercase sound refers to works that employ discreet (often negligible but carefully calibrated) volume and minimal sonic materials such as sine tones, clicks, rustling, or lo-fi sonic detritus. Subtle, sometimes imperceptible, changes in tone and timbre also mark this approach, which enables it to lurk as background music or entice intense listening.
Unlike beat-driven pop music that cuts through the noise of daily life, this music sometimes incorporates, augments, and integrates the surrounding sonic environment into a kind of co-composition with what you're hearing in the world right now.
One such practitioner of live lowercase sound is Kaffe Matthews, whose disc cd eb + flo (Annette Works) was one of my favorite releases of 2003. This London-based artist returns to Seattle for a solo performance at Polestar on a quadraphonic speaker system. With live sampling and processing, Matthews plays the performance space, combining theremin, microphones, and gentle room feedback into minimal, marvelous ear candy. CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI
Kaffe Matthews performs Fri May 14 at 8 pm (Polestar Music Gallery, 1412 18th Ave at E Union St, 329-4224), $10.
