Chambersonic

Reading Chambersonic by Oana Avasilichioaei feels like walking through two kinds of interior spaces: one is a rehearsal or performance space where music is being composed and played, the other is the mind-space of the artist reflecting on their practice. The opening poem, “Fellow Statements,” reads like a door into the first space:

Breath The closing of the door transforms the sound studio into a cocoon. Soft light demarcates its edges, while at the centre stands a simple installation: a small table, chair, recorder, and two vocal microphones. The outer world seems unfathomably distant in both time and space.

The poem “Echoes” begins with a multiplicity of voices, which “will one day ignite and spill over.” Some of these voices “will tingle as they unravel the linkages and lineages of lexicon and grammar”; “other voices will attract converts.” This poem seems to represent the second kind of mind-space where the artists are working on their voices while reflecting on their roles as artists.

Avasilichioaei is interested in evoking the many registers of sound through various mediums, including words and drawings. “Episodes for an Absent Film” is a kind of list poem composed of various sounds, though the sounds and the movie are, of course, absent:

Instrument breath, brushes, cables, cardboard box, chopsticks, contact
mics, letter opener, metal wok cover, mixing console, paper, pencils

This book also incorporates “graphic scoring,” a mode of evoking sound through visual symbols rather than traditional notation, through which the reader can conjure the music in their own mind.

To pronounce and listen oneself into being. To bear the responsibility of the audible and the inaudible. To always begin in the middle.

While Avasilichioaei’s poems include QR codes through which to access the associated musical compositions, the book also invites readers to linger in the silence of the page.