Ryoji Ikeda - 100 cymbals

* New Ryoji Ikeda album
* Pressed on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl
* CMYK printed outer sleeve
* Composed and produced by Ryoji Ikeda
* Performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg

Originally commissioned by Walt Disney Concert Hall for the LA Philharmonic’s centennial festival, 100 cymbals is a study in restraint, space and subtle sonic transformation.

Following his 2017 orchestral work performed by 100 modified cars in Los Angeles, Ryoji Ikeda took an opposite approach: replacing overwhelming volume with near-silence, while retaining the number 100. Expanding an earlier composition for 12 cymbals into a work for ten performers and 100 instruments, Ikeda developed a choreographic composition in which the cymbals remain fixed in a 10 × 10 grid as the performers move between them.

Each cymbal is unique, struck with a variety of mallets to produce delicate, shifting textures. Slowly evolving and richly atmospheric, these sounds form a sonic landscape that envelops the listener—a forest of sound shaped by subtle changes in articulation, movement and dynamics.

A meditation on space, perception and the expressive possibilities of minimal sound, 100 cymbals reveals the extraordinary complexity that can emerge from the quietest gestures.

Program note by Ryoji Ikeda
100 cymbals, op.6 (2019)

In 2017, I created an orchestral piece performed by 100 cars in Los Angeles.
Each car was heavily modified, equipped with numerous speakers and massive subwoofers to amplify the sound.
The performance took place, by chance, in a large parking lot directly in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
All 100 cars faced the concert hall, emitting powerful sound waves toward the building.

A year later, I was contacted by the Walt Disney Concert Hall to commission a new piece as part of the centennial festival of the LA Philharmonic. They wanted the work to connect with Fluxus, an important art movement in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s.

I decided to create something entirely opposite—very quiet—while keeping the number 100.
This is how 100 cymbals was born. I expanded an earlier composition, originally written for 12 cymbals played by four performers, into 100 cymbals for ten players.

The expansion wasn't merely a physical scaling-up of the work but a conceptual development across all compositional parameters: formation, movement, articulation, and dynamics.
Ultimately, it became a choreographic composition, where the 100 cymbals remain stationary while ten players move within the 10×10 grid of cymbals.

Each cymbal is unique—no two are the same.
The players use a variety of mallets to strike the cymbals in simple but subtle ways.
The resulting delicate sound textures combine to create an atmospheric soundscape—a forest of sound that shifts slowly, enveloping the space and the audience.


100 cymbals, op.6 (2019) is a single continuous work of 31:53, divided here for the LP format.

Tracklist:

side A
100 cymbals, op.6 (2019) [16:02]
continues on side B

side B
100 cymbals, op.6 (2019) [15:51]
continued from side A