When the innovative, immersive techno band Coupler performed their original score for the silent film Dragnet Girl in the Meyer Auditorium in 2019, they proved so popular that we had to invite them back. This time they will perform a new score commissioned by the museum for the cult classic A Page of Madness. Ostensibly the story of a man who takes a job as a janitor in a mental hospital to look after his wife who has been committed there, Teinosuke Kinugasa’s film uses all manner of radical techniques to render the world of the mentally ill in clashing, hallucinatory images. Shockingly advanced for its time, it remains a mind-blowing experience on the big screen. Be sure to come early to have a drink and catch a DJ set by Coupler on the Freer plaza from 4:30 to 6:30. (Dir.: Teinosuke Kinugasa, Japan, 1926, 59 min., 35mm, silent)
Lia Kohl, Ryan Norris, Michael Hilger
September 17th, 2022
Cat Pose is an exploratory, collaborative, audio-imaging work by Sonnenzimmer (Nick Butcher & Nadine Nakanishi) and Coupler (Ryan Norris) sparked by a collective interest in the nature of audio loops.
The origin of the project was inauspicious. A question was posited: “what is a loop?”. From that seed a forest of conversations, ideations, and iterations sprang. The process began in earnest with a photograph of Ryan’s cat, Jericho, with the intent of creating a sonic impression of him using a series of audio loops. Based on this photo, a graphic score was developed, 33 equidistant “slices” demarcated from top to bottom. Any section of Jericho’s body within a slice was visualized by an ellipse—a loop—as a graphic representation of the distance around a particular part of his body.
As imaginative as this all may sound, it is only the beginning of the story—a step into the unknown. What Cat Pose actually is can be difficult to parse. There is sound, yes, and text, too. A collaborative essay unpacking the parallels between image and sound wraps around the exterior of the LP cover. Perhaps it is most accurate to call Cat Pose a tone poem, or “tone parallel” as Duke Ellington might say. Cat Pose asks questions but only alludes to answers. It is a meditation on the nature of temporal versus non-temporal art (which, when you think about it…). It interrogates Schrödinger’s famous cat experiment through the lens of a very real, very blind cat, and imagines a conversation the legendary physicist might have had with Jean Piaget about object permanence. Cat Pose is playful, but takes itself seriously. Cat Pose is motion and stasis in balance, an un-concluded interrogation of the twinned nature of time and space, of image and sound. The answers to this interrogation a black hole whose presence is nowhere and effects are everywhere. Cat Pose denies conclusion, but accepts finality. It is a holistic, transparent, creative act; stating the question, performing the answer, and providing a format to revisit both.
Feb 4th, 2022
Original tracks by No Stress from Prelude No. 1
All remixes produced, mixed, and mastered by Ryan Norris
Additional recording by Michael Hilger, Dustin Laurenzi, Ryan Norris
Art by Jamie Breiwick
no-stress.me — @_NoStress_ — @no.s.t.r.e.s.s
couplermusic.com — @couplermusic — @couplermusic
released via yk Records / YK-097
In the early aughts, before Coupler was conceived, Ryan Norris was experimenting with electronic music via two primary processes; one involving early cassette experiments with drum machines, synthesizers, and fried four-tracks; and another based on sampling sounds from LPs, compact discs, and field recordings. The latter approach was influenced by what often gets referred to as IDM: Aphex Twin, Mouse on Mars, and Autechre; and the equally important inspiration of the left-field hip hop of Madlib, DJ Shadow, MF Doom, and J Dilla. Though the approaches have changed and matured, and new tactics have been implemented, the seeds of Coupler were planted in this ground.
Upon hearing the debut No Stress release, Prelude No. 1, Norris remarks that he “was immediately transported to that earlier time and place, where all was fresh and fecund. Here was someone absorbing and repurposing sounds from their environment at will. The fidelity was warm, familiar, and exciting. These were waters I wanted to swim in again. And after 5 ½ years in Chicago my tastes have migrated back to the Venn diagram populated by some of the artists named above, the space where hip hop, jazz, and experimental electronic music meet.”
Reinvention No. 1 sits firmly at the center of that diagram, with Coupler and No Stress occupying equal parts of the new compositions. In reworking the tracks Norris eschewed his reverence for the originals and let the constituent parts lead him in new directions, like the barreling percussion of “Wake Up”, or the anxious landscapes of “Trust Falls with my Enemies.” These new creations have their own identities and internal logic but retain the magic of the originals, an optimal result for any remix project.
Wake Up (Wide Awake Mix)
Michael Hilger - Yamaha CS-50, bells, shakers
Paul Horton - keys, programming
Dustin Laurenzi - tenor saxophone
Ryan Norris - synthesizers, Fender Rhodes, acid bass, futurism, programming
Dara Tucker - voice
Jump Up a Mountain (Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop Mix)
Samples the band Concurrence featuring Greg Bryant, Marcus Finnie, and Paul Horton
Greg Bryant - bass
Marcus Finnie - drum kit
Michael Hilger - OP-1, synthesizers, neon, tears in rain, acid bass
Paul Horton - Fender Rhodes
Ryan Norris - electric guitar, synthesizers, acid bass, programming
Trust Falls With My Enemies (Stress Disorder Mix)
Michael Hilger - synthesizers, OP-1 percussion
Paul Horton - synthesizer
Ryan Norris - electric guitar, synthesizers, Fender Rhodes, acid bass, anxiety, programming
Scott Martin - drum kit
