In recent years, galleries and museums have shown an increasing interest in sound art. The phrase demarcates a territory at some distance from "music," which remains freighted with centuries of history (Bach, Berlioz, the Beatles, Boston, Blink-182, etc.) and the expectations of notes, melodies, a beat, and all that other stuff we hear all along the radio dial. The term also serves as a synonym for experimental music placed in a gallery context, which can inspire a careful attention not found in other venues.

Steven Roden, a visual and sound craftsman from Los Angeles, is one of a handful of artists (along with Christian Marclay, who has an exhibition at SAM next season) getting gallery-goers to listen as well as look. His installation at Jack Straw's New Media Gallery, chamber music, consists of a series of drawings, a silent animated film, and a sound installation. The pieces were collectively inspired by the work of amateur meteorologist Luke Howard, who named the various cloud forms (cirrus, nimbus, etc.) in the early 1800s.

Minimal, but not starkly so, chamber music is a meditation room, as if a chapel or sacred orrery was designed by a restaurant chain's design division. This is a good thing. The brown carpet, the hushed, percolating tones, the blandly beige sofa, and the quartet of drawings that resemble the coffee-table rings left by a forgotten race of sun-treading giants create a compelling, contemplative space from very ordinary, everyday materials. CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI

Chamber music runs Monday through Friday, 9 am to 6 pm, through Fri Aug 15, (Jack Straw Productions, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE, 634-0919), free.

chris@delaurenti.net