Return of the cracklebox

One sign the cracklebox is back: hearing it on two new CDs arriving the same week. On one number from NY trombonist Curtis Hasselbring’s The New Mellow Edwards (Skirl), kraakdoos tweets like a baby birdie, and meanders across a slow gliss – but disappears once the quartet gets down to tonal business. Cracklebox figures in three pieces on multi-instrumentalist Terry Day’s sampler Interruptions (Emanem). ‘Crackle & Bamboo’ from 1981 features a rare robust rendering of cracklebox sound on record: the sudden swoops between scooping high and low tones; the raw vitality of its lower register as a wavering long note begins to break up; the controlled glissandos of a pocket Theremin.

A cracklebox is a Dutch classic, conceived by Michel Waisvisz and executed by engineers at STEIM. (It’s a good story; read Michel’s account and see the photos at crackle.org) Basically, it’s a small wooden box containing a battery-powered unstable oscillator, attached to a small internal speaker. Six exposed parts of the circuit are imprinted on the face of the box as metal strips and pads. You complete the circuit by bridging two or more tabs using fingertips. Because fingers conduct electricity poorly, the resulting sound wavers, yet is instantly responsive to slight variations: wiggle a digit, press down to increase contact, perspire more (or drain the battery) and the pitch or volume changes. The timbre resembles an old airport metal-detector wand.

STEIM sold around 4000 boxes in the 1970s, and they made brief cameos on improvised records by Steve Lacy, Günter Christmann and others, but it never caught on as a serious instrument. Kraakdoos has rich sonic presence in a room, but often sounds thin and reedy on record, even when punched up by classy-label reverb: hear Warren Po on Cornelius Cardew’s ‘Octet’ (Hatology).

In 2004 STEIM quietly began manufacturing crackleboxes again, selling them out the door or over the net. (Earlier this year when a scribe for a Dutch daily wanted to write about its return, STEIM discouraged him: let people find it on their own.) The first new batch sold out; as of this writing it’s back in stock. Curious younger improvisers checked them out. Hip Chicago art students ordered them. German electronauts Mouse on Mars and England’s Coil played them on stage – despite the box’s lack of stage-appeal.

At the time those new CDs came out, I’d been field-testing a new cracklebox alongside my trusty ’70s version (a gift from Waisvisz, dank je zeer nog ’n keer). Like a new car, the 2004 model is slightly wider and lower, subtly sleeker than the old; the speaker may be slightly larger, but I haven’t ripped it apart. Face plate and works are the same. Maybe it’s just a superior battery, but it appears a trifle louder, more crisp and responsive. It’s every bit as versatile: click, whirr, whizz, whoop, pop pop pop eeeeeeEEEEEeeeEeeEEeEEEeuUUp. Ah, it’s really back, and worth celebrating anew.

I’ve used my vintage cracklebox on various improvised gigs, with acoustic instruments, analog or digital electronics, even (miked and amplified) with rock bands. To me, it’s most effective when intruding on another instrument’s space, messing with its overtones. Two crackleboxes together sound especially nasty: attempting to play the same thing with either hand, you get plenty of ear-pinging near-misses and whirling difference-tones. And using two, odds are good at least one of them will co-operate.

For awhile I sketched little fingering charts, to try to systemize its responses, but there are too many variables. Better to learn to steer whatever sound you set in motion. Vibrato, trills, bends, a staccato attack, a tonal sequence: you find them as you tinker. Oddly enough, executing such effects may involve curious parallels to string or saxophone fingerings. With time, playing becomes more intuitive, till you can really make the cracklebox sing. As with any instrument, it pays to practice. Skip a month, you’ll know. Two months, everyone knows.

Then again, some people are naturals: the first time Joost Buis picked one up, he got loopier sounds in two minutes than I’d found over months. That’s another good thing about unpredictability: it’s humbling.