Altered Zones

Octavius says:
The Glass Haus mix does not want your undivided attention.

I've spent more time than I probably should have in thought or debate about various types of music. One area of fascination is the music we choose to play when we intend to focus on something else-- sex, reading, having a conversation.

Glass Haus is best experienced while performing tasks that require only a fraction of your attention. Nothing important.

What we hear while trying to concentrate can be distracting and impair our ability to memorize and recall information.

Nick Perham, PhD, and researchers at the Wales Institute in Cardiff signed up 25 people aged 18-30 to examine their ability to recall information while listening to various sounds.

They were asked to recall a list of eight consonants in a specific order in a test known as Serial Recall, and tested under several different conditions: in a quiet environment, while music was playing that they liked, and while music was playing that they disliked. They were also tested while a voice repeated the number three or spoke single-digit numbers randomly.

The study participants performed best while in a quiet environment or while listening to a voice repeating the number three over and over-- what the researchers called a steady-state environment.

"The poorer performance of the music and changing-state sounds are due to the acoustical variation within those environments," Perham comments. "This impairs the ability to recall the order of items, via rehearsal, within the presented list."

Perham concludes that to reduce the negative effects of background music when recalling information in a specific order, people "should either perform the task in quiet or only listen to music prior to performing the task."

"Listening to music you prefer prior to, rather than at the same time as task performance, does increase performance."

Octavius: Glass Haus Mix for International Tapes

01 Arvo Pärt: "Tabula Rasa: II. Silentium"
02 Charlemagne Palestine: "Tritone octave 1, Pt. I"
03 Edgard Varèse: "Poème Électronique
04 Luigi Nono: "Como Una Ola de Fuerza y Luz: Beginning"
05 Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Studie 1"
06 Herman Heiss: "Elektronische Komposition 1"
07 Raymond Scott: "Cindy Electronium"
08 Rob Ellis: "Slightly Exotic Little Fake Alarm Clock Piece"
09 The Knife: "Colouring Of Pigeons"

MP3: Octavius: "Apartments"

Octavius' Laws is available now from Mannequin