97 BPM Dream Chord Prime Number Search for Four Organs
by the Blue Tape Human Liberation Orchestra
Description
For as long as Minimalist music has existed, one weakness has persisted — the need for human involvement. The BTHLO imagines a future where the purity and pleasure of music can exist without the petty and profane need for human intervention. With its twin slogans of “Save Humans from Music” and “Save Music From Humans,” the BTHLO interrogates the infinite possibilities of this perfect future.
“97 BPM Dream Chord Prime Number Search for Four Organs” is an automated installation that plays a composition on a 20 minute loop, powered by a (mostly) deterministic “sequence of sequences” that is communicated via MIDI through a splitter and a series of homemade “brain boxes” that include microcontrollers that translate MIDI signals into electric impulses that actuate solenoids or pipe organs. The sequences are overlapping series of prime numbers, which prevent obviously overlapping patterns, and all notes are either G, C, C#, or D, also known as La Monte Young’s “Dream Chord,” and fall within 3 octaves. Overlapping chords are interspersed with long and short drones, and sections move from calm to frenetic and back again.
Two homemade pipe organs are fed via homemade “plenum boxes” which send pressurized organ wind, and two 1960’s chord-reed organs are actuated via solenoids. Using Python code, 3D printed boxes and device holders, laser cut panels and sound insulation for sound baffling, and a lot of glue and blue painter’s tape, “97 BPM…” is a futuristic robotic orchestra from the past that plays and buzzes like a mid-20th century oddity that could only have been made in 2026.
Full recording and alternate realizations available on Bandcamp.
All design, software, hardware, and compositions by the artist. Special thanks to Michael Krzyzaniak, Meghan Raham, and Patrick Cain for design inspiration and technical assistance.
Previous installations
Presented at the 10th International Conference on Music and Minimalism, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, May 7–10, 2026.
