Stopcock

It’s important to have a sense of humor if you’re in the business of avant-garde music. You’re naturally inviting comparisons to the absurd when your main mode of creation is by way of experimentation, and The Set Ensemble have a subtle humor that underpins their whole operation. Stopcock is a collection of six compositions, one by each of the group’s members, which range from seemingly self-serious to downright ridiculous. Some, like Sarah Hughes’ “Fires & Conifers” are straight-laced Wandelweiser-adjacent minimalism with a rigid set of instructions for each musician. On Patrick Farmer’s “This has already had a history (2b),” performers are instructed to “initiate the decay” of an object until it’s broken down, and the group chooses to achieve this end by eating fruits and vegetables. Sure enough the credits cheekily mark each musician with things like “apple,” “banana,” and “dried mango” alongside their proper instruments. They’re clearly having fun with it.