- For anyone peering into Café Oto around 10 PM yesterday evening, the scene might have seemed peculiar. A transfixed audience, some seated on the floor, others standing at the back, gathered around a man in his 60s. They listened intently, as if he were reading them a bedtime story. The man was Charles Cohen, and he was coaxing otherworldly sounds out of his signature instrument, the Buchla Music Easel.
Cohen cuts an unlikely cult figure. A small man with cropped grey hair, his yellow hoodie made him look like he'd somehow sprouted from the Buchla's colourful cables. The crowd who turned up for the show, the second of two live performances in London, lent the evening a sense of occasion, with artists like Four Tet, Caribou, Floating Points, Jamie xx and Trevor Jackson joining synth obsessives and other intrigued onlookers.
As Rabih Beaini, AKA Morphosis—the man who oversaw the archival releases that shone light on Cohen, sparking renewed interest in his music—worked through an opening set, Cohen stood quietly to the side, watching on. Though the night ended with a jam session featuring the two artists plus avant-garde musician Shahzad Ismaily on drums, it was Cohen's solo performance that everyone was here to see.
His set was nothing short of a masterclass. He began by teasing the Buchla into life while softly talking into a mic, introducing a kind of serene, cosmic narrative. "Nature never hurries," he said. "Everything gets accomplished." He had the assured and gentle touch of someone who's spent decades refining his craft. Each adjustment of the Buchla and the circuits and effects units built into its edges was made with a supreme economy of effort.
Peculiar bleeps and globules of sound slowly began to smear into broader, more elongated strokes. At the end of his set, Cohen returned to the mic. "After they had explored all the planets of the galaxy, and all the suns of all the planets, they realised they were alone," he said. "And they were happy. They knew it was up to them to become everything they imagined was possible." And with that, the journey was over.
Photo credit: Robin Rimbaud