#caduc

Coppice’s musical approach epitomizes what its name suggests: development, reduction and reuse. Among Cuéllar and Kramer’s numerous undertakings, past endeavors have included a performance on the Baschet Brothers’ Aluminum Piano at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art; a special exhibition of resonating sculptures made from galvanized steel, glass, foam and copper; and a handmade 12 CD-R redwood boxed set that doubles as a reed instrument thanks to the brass tube running through its center. As different as the works are, all three are part of the duo’s Vinculum project, something they refer to as an “archive of sonic artifacts.” Those artifacts include pre-recorded sounds and compositional strategies that are as useful in one discipline as they are in another. Appropriately, the title connotes unification, though usually of the mathematical or anatomical sort. Musically, it describes how the duo goes about its work, both stylistically (how many bellows and electronics duos can you name?) and structurally.

For example, each of the 12 CD-Rs in that boxed set, which are also available in made-to-order sets of three, contains a single track altered to highlight a particular kind of noise. Listeners are encouraged to play those discs simultaneously, but it’s not as if they come with an instruction manual describing exactly how they should be heard. You can play them one at a time or in tandem. You can put them on in separate rooms. Or you can combine them all on your computer, adjust the levels, and create a custom Vinculum mix of your own. If it sounds like fun, try it. There’s no wrong way to approach the music and nothing is forbidden.

As if to prove that point, Cuéllar and Kramer slip one of those discs, Vinculum PC-1 04.01 003:57, into Vantage/Cordoned at some point during “Soft Crown.” Its presence will go unnoticed by anyone unfamiliar with the series, but just knowing that it’s there changes the way that Coppice’s music feels. It puts the stress on process rather than completion and softens the ordinarily firm line between work-in-progress and final product, making the album less of a destination and more of a way station. It’s a place where new techniques can be tried out with older, more familiar ones, where wheezy drones can be tied into knots with wobbly tape effects, and muffled recordings — of heavy winds, conversations or heavy construction — can be made to move both backward and forward in time simply for the sake of testing those waters. Assuming that the sounds are just as flexible as the machines that make them possible, why not reuse the sounds, too?

Some might call that process remixing and wonder why anyone should find it so unique. In the case of Vantage/Cordoned,it comes across more as recycling than as remixing. The music, as fascinating and physically impressive as it is on its own, points away from itself and underscores the systems that bring it to life. Those systems are modular and endlessly adaptable, capable of producing way more variety than any one performance, installation or album could contain, so Coppice makes music that emphasizes that fact. Sounds are processed and reprocessed, instruments are broken down and rebuilt with new functions, and previously recorded material is given new life as part of a new composition. The music begins with these core elements andgrows from them the way a tree grows up from its roots. It’s also limited by those elements, but that’s what pruning is for.

Even if you’ve never heard another one of their recordings, that organic sensibility comes across in the way Coppice handles its compositions. They’re loose and free-flowing, seemingly improvised and ramshackle, as if held together by duct tape and Elmer’s school glue. That messiness is part of what makes them so mesmerizing; it generates tension and lends them an impossible sheen, like watching someone build a house of cards on a moving bicycle. We can enjoy the spectacle while it lasts, even if Cuéllar and Kramer eventually demolish it for the sake of something new.