Chris Brown - Chain Reaction for Electronics, Airdrums, Sax and Piano (1991)

In the collection "CDCM Computer Music Series, Vol. 17," performed by the group ROOM. Similar to the setup of the composer's computer-network piece "Rol'Em" (1988), Brown continues to experiment "with music in which the musicians cross the boundaries of each other's instrumental territory, where their instruments interact and influence each other directly, and where every player is responsible for a different parameter of the same sound." In this approximately 13-minute piece, the Airdrums (a MIDI-based instrument controller with two tubes, each of which has six accelerometer-based triggers that respond to motion on three axes) controls several parameters such as transposition, delay and reverberation of bass-like and percussion-like sounds, and triggers electronic sound in the last section of the piece; similarly, the saxophone controls transposition through a pitch-follower. The first section of the piece begins the slow unfolding of richly harmonic and melodically angular new jazz lines for piano and sax in a dense and intense texture. This develops into a nervous telegraphic rhythmic pulsing with additional Airdrums and other electronics, at times engagingly humorous in its gestures. Cymbal-like sounds evoke dense and propulsive accumulative delays of notes and sax breath and lipping noises. The piece concludes with a gradual dissolution of sounds. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide