In an interview I once did with Lou Harrison, he claimed that had John Cage become involved in Asian music in a practical way “it would simply have become another system he would have needed to upset”. Although Harrison’s assertion was largely correct (noting that “upset” is a rather loaded word), this life-affirming disc by a group of musicians centred around Indian singer Amelia Cuni demonstrates that the potential is there to filter any music through Cage’s processes. Indeterminacy and randomness put objective distance between the source and its internal functions, allowing the listener to gauge the raw fundamentals of a material moving in flux.

Cage originally conceived of Solo for Voice 58 as a showcase for Cathy Berberian, and the work is a self-assembly “flat pack” score that is open to interpretation. As Cuni points out, Cage’s directions explicitly cite the traditional Indian forms of “ragas” (scales) and “talas” (rhythmic units) as the basis of the piece – the performer must build lines and rhythmic relationships of their own, not through improvisation but by internalising Cage’s instructions as a form of internal discipline.

Cage meant the performer to evoke the spirit of Indian music but Cuni brings matters full circle by realising the piece as one intimately versed in the tradition’s techniques and microtonal inflections. Cage provides a microtonal skeleton and Cuni manipulates the minuscule micro-divisions between notes with an innate ease that Western performers can take as a measure for the future. The result is a profoundly authentic, Apollonian beauty.