all that makes us human continues

In mid-September, J4CK13 and I were able to experience the debut, in 5.1 DTS surround, of Mr. BT’s latest project, “This Binary Universe”. In addition to being created in surround, video was created alongside the audio. this project exists as a unified piece of digital art.

Putting into words, what this project means is like putting a black hole into a shoebox. But not publishing my thoughts is holding up my blogging… and we can't have that... can we? :-)

It is said that one must learn the rules first to effectively break them – in This Binary Universe, BT demonstrates his command of all the rules in music, and simultaneously breaks them all.

If this work reflects any tradition – it would be that of classical music, with its linear progressions, longer pieces, and movements (no clapping between the movements!). Besides this reference, minimalism receives a familiar nod throughout, and in movements II and III, jazz.

Nothing else can be described using categories we are familiar with. Everything defies description, categorization, and boundaries. Where emotional technology was apparent perfection – this is beyond anything I thought a human could conceive in my lifetime.

Time signatures are a triviality… TBU floats between them like they are meaningless. stranger still, I do not feel obligated to “figure them out”. This work simply transcends meter – something nearly every other song is a slave to.

In light as in sound, we humans perceive along a logarithmic scale – while the physics of machines more often follow a linear scale. Since a drum machine that follows logarithmic scales doesn’t exist, BT and a handful of programmers sat down at his kitchen table and designed proprietary drum triggering software that scales from e.g. 1024th notes to triplet 8th in time following a *logarithmic* curve. This is heard throughout.

While we find genre’s to be useful (e.g. in conversation), most understand them to be arbitrary. It is considered an event when genre’s are mixed in new and refreshing ways. Yet, few truly transcend genre. Mark O’Connor is one such musician who comes to mind - a fiddle player who plays bluegrass, classical, jazz, fusion….

TBU will confront you with the notion that music *itself* is an arbitrary categorization. Beyond “just” sound creation TBU confronts us with physics, philosophy, spirituality, humanity, creativity, invention, in addition to the compositions, performance, recording, engineering, mixing and mastering.

Sound – the sound, seemingly effortless; be that sourced from “real” or synthetic instruments, analogue or digital, granular or coded - the sound, as in the compositions, reflects only beauty in the highest order.

mathematical order, undoubtedly.
human (intuitive) order, absolutely.
perhaps approaching a divine order.
...or at least a new paradigm of what it means to be human.

If Brian Transeau just did art – it would be reverential … but his art has significance in this world that I think is unique… and I think that significance is grounded in his drive to explore what makes us – the sacred conscious animals that we are – human.

at the end of the day, he took too long with the first group (I didn't even think he would be part of the early showing) and our start time was delayed an hour. BT intro'd TBU to us and let us watch it, and then took questions until the theater kicked us out... at which point he set up tables outside and took the time to sign stuff and chat and whatever - for as long as we wanted to stay.

while in line, someone who knows me as a synth geek asked if i learned anything - phew - "hell no" was my answer - everything was so far above my head, and will be for a long while, that BT is barely able to influence me, any more than Lance can influence my biking (I don't own one at the moment) or Tiger can influence my golf game (paid $50 for my whole set of clubs).

... but when it came my time to meet with the man i consider to be Aristotle, Plato, Da Vinci, Mozart, Bach, Einstein, Heisenburg and Brian Green all rolled into one, i got a hug. when i told him about my friends son who passed the night before, i got a "oh man, i'll be praying..." which i must have accepted to quickly or easily - so he restated it slower, adding "I'm serious about that."

and when i asked for a picture with him, i got this:
a picture of three humans.