January 13, 2009
Just in time for the Western holiday season, Christiaan Vivrant and Zhang Jian (aka FM3) released a sequel to their Buddha Machine, the mass-produced musical art object that so delighted fans of audio gadgets and avant-garde music. Although the ambient looper has become familiar to enthusiasts since its 2005 release, its origins in Asian spiritual technology are perhaps not as well known. As the Buddha Machine’s name suggests, small boxes containing loops of Buddhist prayers (sutras) have been used by believers in East Asia for quite some time. I first heard a “talking sutra box” in Taiwan in the early 90s, found it fascinating, and have managed to collect a few of them over the years. Vivrant and Zhang found these devices so compelling that they tracked down a Chinese factory to commission new versions that played the duo’s own original loops.
As I usually write about live shows or CDs, the Buddha Machine II provides a welcome chance to do something different. In the spirit of the “shootout” between competing products found on tech review sites, I thought I would compare the Buddha Machine II to two similar (but non-secular) products that are currently available online. In true Buddhist fashion, however, it was only moments after turning these boxes on that the Buddha boxing match became a love in—the three sounded so good together that any sort of competition became irrelevant. I have interspersed this review with Youtube videos of the boxes at play.
Buddha Machine II (L) at play with Taiwanese (R) and Tibetan (top) chant boxes.
Like its predecessor, the Buddha Machine II erodes the distinction between musical instrument, playback device, and recorded musical performance. It is a small, plastic speaker box containing a digital chip loaded with several short, minimalist musical pieces. Each track is looped and can be listened to as long as one likes (or until the AA batteries run out), while a single button allows the user to switch between loops. In a sense, the Buddha Machine is an album that plays itself, unlike an LP or MP3, which require separate devices for playback. However, the unit is also designed as performance instrument, and has been used as such by Zhang and Vivrant’s own FM3, as well as Low, Sun O))), Mike Patton and others. As an instrument, the new version of the Buddha Machine II is greatly improved by a new pitch bend wheel, which allows the user to adjust the pitch and tempo of the loops to match other material.
The loops themselves do a lot with very little. Simple guitar and piano lines, immersed in strange resonances, vibrate out of the box. FM3’s use of feedback is particularly interesting, as it is impossible to discern whether the distortion is coming from the source material, the low-bitrate of the reproduction, the tiny speaker being over-driven, or some combination of the three. I find that this mystery, as it repeats itself over and over, begins to smear my sense of place as my consciousness switches back and forth between the speaker in the room with me, the idea of the crunchy silicon chip, and some imagined space in China where FM3 recorded these evocative sounds. Zhang and Vivrant resist the temptation to over-embellish these tiny compositions, nor do they attempt to prescribe a particular emotional response. The pieces are ambiguous enough to shift from beautiful to ominous and back again as minutes pass by, perhaps reflecting the mind of the listener more than the intentions of the performers.
FM3's Buddha Machine II meets a Taiwanese Buddhist sutra box, creating something like an Enya, Jesus and Mary Chain. Toward the end, I remove the chant box so you can hear the BMII's feedback loop.
Digital Buddha Jukebox (13-Song)
This Taiwanese Chant box features 13 renditions of sutras, most of them done in a contemporary, syncretic musical style that reveals both traditional Chinese and contemporary pop influences. The sound is that of a slickly produced digital recording that has been bit-mashed and fed through a crappy speaker, making it the new millennial equivalent of an AM transistor or shortwave radio tinkling out a carefully crafted Carpenters tune. (If Karen was high on Buddhism instead of pills, of course.)
If you’re anything like me, the above description, coupled with the $9.30 price tag, has you sold already—and I haven’t even mentioned the swirling lightshow. In the front of the box is a circular cutout that houses a semi-transparent image of the bodhisattva Guanyin sitting on a lotus flower. Behind her, a swirling, kaleidoscope of rainbow light beams emerges in a mesmerizing 3-D effect. Everyone I have handed this thing to has stared helplessly at it for minutes at a time.
FM3's Buddha Machine II meets a Tibetan sutra box, which features a traditional chant rather than a modern musical adaptation of a Buddhist prayer. The loop on the BMII is a guitar that seems to toll like a bell in the context of the chant.
Digital Buddhist Jukebox in Tibetan (5 Songs)
This box is smaller than the two others and includes a strap to hang it from your neck. The strap, coupled with its headphone output, means that you can rock these gritty Tibetan prayer loops on the subway or bus. The iPod drones will eye you with curiosity and envy when you sport these two inches of plastic chant bling, embossed with a distinctive lotus-shaped speaker. The loops on this box keep it old school, with a monk chanting a cappella—no synths, melodies or other musical trappings. At a mere $4.00, it is a must-buy for believer and non-believer alike.