Seth Andrew Davis & EMAS: Cybersyn: Live From the Stray Cat Film Center

Undeniably one of the most active and adventurous figures of the greater Midwest music and arts scene, composer/guitarist/improvisor Seth Andrew Davis has emerged as a force of creative exploration and inquiry. Currently based in Kansas City, MO, Davis has released well over a dozen albums through his imprint, Mother Brain Records (co-founded with fellow Missouri-native, Michael Eaton) and many more. In line with the experimental and improvisation-focused mission of the label, Davis' "Cybersyn: Live at the Stray Cat Film Center" showcases one of his most ambitious, cerebral, and enjoyable documents to date. 

For this project, Davis enlisted the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society (EMAS) for performing a large-scale, multi-movement piece for mixed electroacoustic ensemble with live video and laptop processing. Taking inspiration from the large-scale, mixed ensembles of Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, and others, Davis created the blueprint for Cybersyn. He simultaneously conducted the live sound from EMAS' six performers—including woodwinds, harp, and electronics—while manipulating their acoustic output through a laptop alongside Ian O'Neill's video. This interactive, environment-driven feedback system was inspired by the decision support system first theorized by the Allende Government of Chile in the early 1970s.

While this level of organizational complexity may sound daunting to approach for the average listener, the world Davis and EMAS have created with this performance is consistently exciting, captivating, and never predictable. It is highly accessible without being provided any of the aforementioned information of its construction and underlying framework. Across 11 movements, all those involved move together as a total unit in establishing a series of rich, enveloping soundscapes and a seemingly endless variety of novel and appealing textures. From Kopper's opening arco bass drone and Baker's muezzin-esque calls on saxophone, the full sound of the ensemble surrounds and envelopes with an instant, natural depth and full use of stereo space. It is astonishing that this performance is presented unedited and completely live because it achieves its timbral qualities, balance and effect more fully than most studio recorded albums are able to adequately articulate.   

Along the way, things veer from dense, jazz-like passages evoking the film scores of Lalo Schifrin and Ennio Morricone Il Gruppo improvisations to feral pointillism to vague, blinking synths against industrial concrete backdrops with solo lyrical melodic shards floating in endless ambiance. Each movement felt distinctly engaging, featuring ever new and fresh curations of infinitely available sounds from the group. Particular highlights include the expansive, 16-minute eighth movement which begins with soothing glissandos before ascending into some turbulent storm cloud of flurrying activity, The desolate sixth movement characterized by varying layers of white and pink noise interspersed with fragmented harp stabs, and the denouement-by-static of final eleventh movement. 

This is one of the best realized documents of a modern electroacoustic ensemble released in recent memory. Emerging at the other side, one feels a sense of having traveled a serious distance on a spiritual ride of mammoth proportions and is left with a sincere sense of fulfillment and renewal in line with any such journey. It is a work of art that happens to you and likely to be remembered and revisited often by those interested in experiencing such things.