It is 1967. It is the year I am born. The counterculture of the US is echoing across the world. It is the Summer of Love. Youth movements question the establishment, war, capitalism, and traditional values. In Europe investment is flowing into media, technology and art. Music is shaking itself from the academic confines of serialism. 

Sergeant Pepper is released while The Velvet Underground and Nico are emerging from grimy New York lofts. Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Stockhausen are all reshaping what we think of as ‘classical’ music. Composers are venturing into minimalism, ambient music and the exploration of ‘found sounds’ or Musique Concrète. Technology is becoming democratised with the launch of the Moog synthesizer. And portable with the Nagra III recorder combining studio level recording with handheld convenience. 

It is early in the morning and Luc Ferrari is lying on the ground, by the sea, as a small fishing village wakes. He is on the Dalmation Coast in the former Yugoslavia with a hand held recorder and a microphone. Listening. Recording. Back at the studio in Paris he splices, loops and edits these recordings with the bare minimum of ‘electronic transformation’ or processing. 

What emerged was a ‘sonic narrative’ or ‘scenario’ which Ferrari saw as similar to the Sonata form having expositions, development and recapitulation. He named it Presque Rien – ‘Almost Nothing’.

Premiered in 1970 and later released on a compilation album alongside other works Presque Rien shaped my relationship with music profoundly. The idea that ANYTHING could be music. As John Cage put it: ‘music is everywhere’. All the time. 

And so what is it about music that makes us feel how we do? Why do we sometimes tune in and sometimes tune out? What is the difference between distraction and noise versus engagement and harmony?

It is Almost Nothing. And it is everything.