Although John Cage was trained in the European tradition, he was quick to forge his own unique style, rejecting the Western concept of music as a dramatic development from A to B and instead viewing it as a state of mind, changing but not heading towards a goal.

The development of this approach is particularly apparent in his works for percussion – the focus of this CD – where the instrumental family’s hitherto traditional role of simply supporting the phrasing and architecture is rejected, its primal energy instead harnessed and showcased as a source for new sounds. ‘I do not deal in purposes; I deal in sounds,’ wrote Cage of Sixteen Dances, the first piece on the album. It’s an apt description for pretty much his entire musical oeuvre.