蜜芽传媒

Looking ahead to Satie-Day, Radio 3鈥檚 celebration of French composer and pianist Erik Satie tomorrow, Jennifer Lucy Allan raids her shelves and draws up a chair for a very Late Junction exploration of Satie鈥檚 concept of 鈥楩urniture music鈥�.

A term coined by Satie in 1917, 鈥榤usique d'ameublement鈥�, or 鈥楩urniture Music鈥� is music intended to be heard rather than listened to, that could be repeated over and over again. This could be an orchestral movement made specifically to be played "during a lunch or civil marriage"; a piece to be played in a vestibule during the arrival of guests, or a simple composition consisting of four phrases to be repeated 840 times. Conceptual art? A Dadaist joke? The first ambient music? Proto-Musak?! We don鈥檛 have a leg to stand on in this debate鈥�

To mark a century since the death of one of experimental music鈥檚 forebears, Jennifer Lucy Allan goes literal, piecing together and drilling into a self-assemblage of music made from and dedicated to actual furniture, alongside a selection of Satie鈥檚 definition of Furniture Music.

Expect sounds made from the rubbing, bowing and scratching chair legs and a bubble lamp, as well a percussion unit made of office shelves courtesy of Test Dept. There鈥檒l be the serene sounds of music designed to be similar to 鈥渢he vibration of footsteps, the hum of an air conditioner, or the clanging of a spoon inside a coffee cup,鈥� courtesy of one of environmental music鈥檚 pioneers, Hiroshi Yoshimura.

Plus a long-overdue release of piano works by the composer Annea Lockwood performed by Xenia Pestova Bennett; two doses of sound poetry by American mail artist John M. Bennett and Chinese experimenter and labelhead Zhu Wenbo; and some retrofuturebaroque cantatas by composer and pianist Tim Parkinson.

A Reduced Listening production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 3
Produced by Cat Gough