While the means of music delivery are in flux like never before, it’s a brave and/or foolish step to continue offering physical packages to consumers. Even braver/more foolish is to ignore the format war entirely and devise your own. Sometimes the risk is worth it and your “album” becomes a much-desired fetish object, blurring the lines between music and art. Such was the case for the Buddha Machine from ambient duo FM3. Electronic musician and conceptual artist Tristan Perich stays closer to a familiar form and turns it on its ear. His 1-Bit Music device comes in a standard CD jewel case, but replaces the disc with what could be mistaken for the left-overs of a Radio Shack DIY project. A single chip generates eleven glitchy exercises in melody and rhythm, accessed by a headphone jack. The controls are simpler than an iPod Shuffle: a power switch, skip button, and volume dials for the stereo output. It shares the sonic qualities of an Atari 2600 game, but his compositions explore sophisticated terrain. 1-Bit Music would probably have sold well based on its grand gimmick alone, so it’s impressive that Perich didn’t just create a random-tone generator and call it a day. It’s a thought-provoking sculpture reminding us that if the content’s good, the format ultimately doesn’t matter.

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