Forms of Paper

Forms of Paper is an experimental musical piece by Steve Roden created solely from heavily distorted sounds of paper being handled. It is considered to be the first lowercase album, an ambient music movement where extremely quiet sounds are amplified using a computer. Forms of Paper was originally commissioned by the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles public library for the exhibition "Six Degrees - Art in the Libraries". A ten minute version of... more

Forms of Paper is an experimental musical piece by Steve Roden created solely from heavily distorted sounds of paper being handled. It is considered to be the first lowercase album, an ambient music movement where extremely quiet sounds are amplified using a computer. Forms of Paper was originally commissioned by the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles public library for the exhibition "Six Degrees - Art in the Libraries". A ten minute version of the track was played softly continuously for a month from eight speakers atop a pedestal covered with pages from discarded library books. The CD version was expanded and reworked to be nearly an hour long. Only 500 CDs were made of this version. All songs written and composed by Steve Roden. less