Tom Recchion - "Soundtrack To A Color : Gold & Black"
Tom Recchion-produced CD due to COLA [City of Los Angeles] Fellowship, USA.
Edition of 2000 with no number. 2004.


Tom Recchion has been active through 1970's - 80's in Los Angeles Free Music Society [LAFMS].
He has never lost his passion for creative art and life, although colleagues around him gave it up.

The trend of US politics is rightish and it is reflected in the diminishment of grant for art.
COLA [City of Los Angeles] could not be an exception.

Well, there is an organization named The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound [SASSAS] in LA of the present.
It appears an embodiment of artist's will for self-protection....

Tom and other crews in LAFMS are involved in various action from SASSAS, now.
Their will for development of real and interesting music in daily life, which has been kept for
a sequence for a quarter of a century survives in this action in the 21st century.

Under such a severe situation for art, however, COLA offered a grant of $10,000 for 10 artists.
The outcome was exhibited as "COLA 2004" through May-June 2004 in LA municipal gallery.

Tom Recchion, one of winners of the grant, presented an installation there.
He himself describes the installation as following.

"The installation consisted of 2000 posters:
1000 Gold and 1000 Black.

Two separate rooms were covered with these posters
that were covered solid in their color with the name of the color printed rather large in dead center.
at the bottom of each poster was listed the instrumentation for each particular soundtrack to the color.

The GOLD room was flooded in light., the BLACK room had no light other than ambient light from the gallery.
In the center wall that separated each room was a small shelf where stacks of the CDs.

On each side of the shelf were stacks of the gold and the black posters.

2000 CDs were manufactured.
The CD and posters were given away free.

Each room had a sound system.
Each soundtrack was played in the space in a constant repetition via 2 Apple iPods".

The two soundtracks for the installation are recorded in this CD.
The first track is entitled "GOLD", and the second is "BLACK".
Each one is composed with form of minimal music.

"GOLD" is the music, which is suitable for so luminous place.
Absolute euphoria and trance arise from long-lasting repetition of the luminous sound.
It appears to arise from Asian ethnic atmosphere, which never comes from pure western civilization.

Strange-shaped pieces of sounds are flying around and euphoric, ecstatic and rich time is passing.
The pieces are apparently sound products created by Tom within the past quarter of a century.
It is just a kaleidoscopic, or an eternally revolving lantern for our life.

Even if you have not listened to Tom's works in the past,
the marvelous pieces of sound floating in your mind would exactly attract any listeners.

However, this music might be just a BGM for listeners who are not attentive to "musical anatomy".

Even if you feel your daily life just a silly one, unexpected excitements exist behind it.
In spite that this society prevents us from experiencing the pleasure, there is it.

The music of "GOLD" seems to activate our memory of the pleasure
hidden behind social circumstance,




In contrast to the "GOLD", which provides positive energy in our mind and space,
spiral movement of sounds in the track "BLACK" sucks in everything like a black hole.

Its heavy and dark refrain reminds us of the very early phase of The Swans.

It sounds like a reflection of western world in which economical development has been saturated.
It would exist on the other side of "GOLD", as a symbol of fully opened world.

The cloudy sound of "BLACK" is superimposed with sound voicing "I am gonna get you".
Is this a mirror reflecting the shadow of the USA at the present?

The sense of BLACK, however, sometimes turns to the GOLD one.
We wonder whether BLACK can melt with GOLD through obscure looking glass.

It seems a message from Tom.
It would state "Here is a bit of hope".

Nobody knows whether the statement is effective in this world.

Numerous and dynamic pieces of sound vibrating behind the dark curtain are again
ones that Tom has created through a quarter of a century.

They sound strange, dumb and SHIBUI.


GOLD and BLACK, or brightness and darkness are here.
The two elements do never collaborate, but exist at the same time.

Each of them is far away from the other, but can not exist without the other.
Fragments floating between these opposite concepts should be a connector of the two rooms.

The music in this CD provide such a meditation.
The gold room and the black room do exactly exist in our mind.

You can listen to a cat voice at the end of "GOLD".
Tom's cat sounded it.

Name of the cat is "Squeaky", Tom said.


Going home



Version-1 Dec-31, 2004