When the Buddha Machine first appeared in the autumn of 2005, it seemed like a fascinating new gadget, a clever idea that would make a good Christmas stocking-filler. When stories circulated that Brian Eno had bought one in each of the seven available colours, some people who had been dismissive or cynical sat up and took notice. What they discovered was something that looked rather like a small transistor radio or portable tape player. The brainchild of experimental loop-based music duo FM3 (Christiaan Verant, from Nebraska, and Beijing -based keyboardist Zhang Jian), it was manufactured in China and was based on a device that played loops of Buddhist chanting, hence its name.
It came preprogrammed with nine different loops, each having an ambient quality about it that induced tranquility in the listener. A loop could be played indefinitely until the listened got bored and changed loop, or until the batteries (two AA's) ran down. Fans likened the endless repitition of the loops to locked-groove recordings such as those at the end of Sergeant Pepper or Metal Machine Music. Critics complained that the sound from the machine's speaker was rather thin and tinny. However, it was beautifully simple to operate, with nothing else to buy to make it work. The Buddha Machine developed a cult following and caught on rapidly.
The original Buddha Machine was followed in autumn 2008 (again, you will notice, in time for the stocking-filler market) by Buddha Machine II which added the innovation that the speed - and, hence, the pitch - of loops could be controlled by rotating a small dial. In other respects, it was not radically different to the original. That had sold tens of thousands - why change a winning formula?
(Left to right: Buddha Machine, Buddha Machine II, The Black Box, Gristeism.)
In autumn 2009, the picture became murkier as two new contenders using the same technology as the Buddha Machines came on the scene: The Black Box and Gristleism. Both were programmed with loops, but we were no longer in relaxing ambient territory. For instance, when the coffin-shaped Black Box is switched on, the first sound one hears is a flat, emotionless human voice repeatedly intoning the phrase, "Today I will not kill myself." On another, a different voice repeats, "I don't feel anything."
Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...
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