NON: Children of the Black Sun

The story of ambient music’s genesis begins with egg-domed musical dilettante/mentor Brian Eno being struck by a taxi in January 1975. While recuperating in hospital, the story goes, Eno was given an album of harp music by a friend. Unfortunately (and here’s where the historical record varies), (a) the stereo on which the album played malfunctioned, (b) a thunderstorm boomed outside Eno’s hospital window, or (c) both. Because of Eno’s fragile body, he couldn’t get up to fix the stereo, and listened in bed.

Now, rather than finding a way to throw something at the stereo from the confines of his bed — which seems to be a completely rational response to a stereo playing music that was intended to calm in a way that could enrage — and thus ending his near-captive listening session, Eno was apparently entranced. There’s strangely no word on how whatever painkillers he may have been on affected his experience.

And what happened? The music drifted in and out of audibility, and thus in and out of being an active presence in the room. Eno realized that he could have a hand in creating a similar type of music, music that required a passive role from its listeners; music, in other words, that took away the active role that listeners necessarily had to take with the tricky and brainy glam-progressive rock he made as a member of Roxy Music and later as a solo artist. It’s probably important to mention here that Eno was drawing as much from his reaction to a crap soundsystem as he was from his musical forebears, especially Erik Satie’s “furniture music”, music that is as much a part of the environment as it is the environment in which it is played or performed. (Weirdly, innumerable improvisational musicians have taken Eno’s hospital stay as their modus operandi, working, as they do, with — whether intentionally or accidentally — broken musical equipment.)

Of course, Eno’s desire to get rid of active listening altogether with his ambient projects (like 1979’s Music for Airports) could be seen as misguided: think of the violent reactions that some folks have to Muzak or New Age or “Environmental” Music (whale calls and their ilk), genres for which we have ambient to thank. Sure, they’re all ostensibly background musics: music that’s supposed to spark the consumer to buy, the anxious dentist’s patient to be soothed, the newborn to go to sleep. But what about the fact that the music, while it could discourage active listening, does want to encourage activities of other kinds? And what of the term “fucking elevator music”, used as a disparaging remark? Doesn’t this mean that this is music that people are listening actively enough to want to disparage it?

NON (the moniker Boyd Rice, who’s been releasing records since 1981, records under) wants to revisit that legendary hospital room that spawned ambient. Rather than rethink the genre, though, Rice wants to replay the music that tumbled in fits and starts into that room and run it through powerful distortion pedals, echo effects, assorted amplifiers, processors, and compressors. Needless to say, Rice’s latest release, Children of the Black Sun is not easily ignored.

Rice’s pseudonym shares more than a couple letters with the Eno’s name. Both musicians create incredibly lush soundscapes that conjure up whole worlds for the listener. And what with the 5.1 DVD mix of the music that accompanies this album, your entry into Rice’s worlds can result in total immersion. It’s a short journey, too, either way; since the album’s a scant 31 minutes, you’re left with enough time when it concludes to go shopping at the duty-free for your choice of alcohol and heavy Russian cigarettes.

“Arka”, which starts the album, is easily the closest relative to the music Eno listened to that day, as a faint harp can be heard below what sounds like rumbling thunder. Scratchy violins and eerie wails complement the mix. This composition leads into “Black Sun”, which begins with a triumphant-sounding horn above some massing and swelling strings. The horn disappears as the strings dominate, and then reappears as the composition keeps swelling to its conclusion.

“Serpent of the Heavens” gives us a brief respite from the tension that builds through the previous composition. Although not for long, as the buzzing noise of a thousand didgeridoos arise through the mix; this buzzing is slashed through with some wickedly echoing chords. The next piece, “Serpent of the Abyss”, is a floor-shaking drone adorned with wailing banshee-notes. (By the way, we’re ultimately left wondering if the two serpents are siblings, since the liner notes, while explaining the mythological roots of the pieces’ titles, don’t give any clues.)

“The Underground Stream” roils menacingly with the sound of sticks burning (or is it rain tumbling on the tin roof of a machine shop in an empty town near Denver, Colorado, where Rice lives? or is it only the sound of that titular stream?) and some distorted-to-the-point-of-incomprehensible voices that might very well be calling from beyond. “The Fountain of Fortune” has a similar aquatic theme (both figuratively and musically), as splashing water is heard throughout, and a organ line that sends us all to religious services under the sea.

This album and these two pieces in particular, with the way that they seem to demand repeated listening, sets your mind going down emotional and musical pathways of which Eno may never have dreamed.