VF releases new Ryoji Ikeda album 100 cymbals

Performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the work brings together ten players and 100 unique cymbals.

Ryoji Ikeda has released a new album, 100 cymbals, via The Vinyl Factory.

Originally commissioned by Walt Disney Concert Hall for the LA Philharmonic’s centennial festival, 100 cymbals was composed and produced by Ikeda and performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg.

The work grew out of an invitation to create a composition connected to Fluxus. Two years earlier, Ikeda had staged an orchestral piece in Los Angeles using 100 cars, each modified with speakers and subwoofers. Positioned in a parking lot opposite Walt Disney Concert Hall, the vehicles directed powerful sound waves towards the building.

For the new commission, Ikeda retained the number 100 while taking the sound in the opposite direction. “I decided to create something entirely opposite—very quiet—while keeping the number 100,” he explains.

Expanding an earlier composition for 12 cymbals and four performers, Ikeda arranged 100 cymbals in a 10 × 10 grid. The instruments remain fixed as ten players move between them, making choreography part of the composition.

100 cymbals follows VF's recent release of Ikeda's new collaboration with Michelle Lamy, music for strings and recent represses of Ikeda’s The Solar System and Code Name: A–Z, both back in stock at The Vinyl Factory shop.

Running for 31 minutes and 53 seconds, 100 cymbals is a single continuous work, divided across two sides for its vinyl release. The album is pressed on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl and housed in a CMYK-printed outer sleeve.

Order 100 cymbals on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl from The Vinyl Factory now.