David Kronke: The Buddha Machine

Browsing at Amoeba the other day, I came upon something about the size of a disposable camera called the "Buddha Machine," an extremely low-tech iPod not dissimilar to an old-fashioned portable transistor radio. It plays 9 different ambient loops that vary between 2 and 43 seconds in length; you click a button when you get tired of hearing one being replayed over and over and want to go on to another (some can be listened to fairly endlessly, others, not so much). Amoeba's hand-written hard-sell noted that Brian Eno had purchased a dozen of the gizmos; figuring that I'm at least one-twelfth the man that Brian Eno is, I got one.

Turns out there's something of a cult surrounding the item in Europe, where it's been available for a couple of years. It's touted as an aide to meditating, though I find it a better companion for lulling me to sleep (though that'll burn its batteries out pretty quickly). And, ostensibly, there's a little plastic Buddha tucked away in its wiring, though of course if you set about trying to find it you'll destroy the thing.

The music, created by a duo going by the name of FM3, is simple -- several "pieces" are no more than a few notes -- but there is a soothing, sometimes mesmerizing nature to the project. Certainly, there are cheaper, less quixotic ways of listening to ambient music (such as, naturally, a Brian Eno CD), but the packaging is wherein the genius lies, combining retro (the cheap plastic casing) with the contemporary (bright colors -- mine is a garish orange) and a sensibility appealing to the mystically minded and kitsch-lovers both. The austerity of both the plastic box and the music lend the thing a sense of mystery. You could buy a bunch of them and set them up around your place and bewilder friends and neighbors.

Demystifying the thing a bit, here's an interview with Christiaan Virant, one of the band members, an American living in China.