'Musique concrete' and 'electro-acoustical' music
appeared 50 years ago. In the sixties 'free jazz' was
another attempt to liberate music. These musicians thought that sound alone could do it. What this music perhaps lacks is a reference frame, something we recognize and which can guide us. It's precisely the confrontation of convention and the new sound that can attract and appeal. Just adding conventional attributes of rhythm or melody to pure sounds gives them a much more alienating effect. The time that actors deserted the stage and started to mix up with their public belongs to the past, thanks heaven. It lacked the same frame (the stage) and pretended to embrace 'reality' 'society' etc. In modern art painters also started to paint rooms instead of canvases, Christo wrapped up complete landscapes. But these exceptions stress the general rule: We need frames to isolate parts of reality in order to draw our attention to reality.
Working with music or images I see myself as a recorder of things that are happening beyond my strict control. Just by isolating I try to bring them to another level. In photography it is perhaps more obvious: the reality is in front of you and you just put a frame around something that catches your eye. In music I try to use a similar procedure. In this case the 'frame' of the 'picture' is the music, or perhaps better, some sort of musical tradition. Just as the traditional frame of a picture on the wall isolates it from the rest of the world and guides us to the picture, so can rhythm, melody and harmony offer a medium, a 'frame' in which to incorporate our 'snapshots' of sound.