Listen to the pauses, not the notes

Lowercase is a new electronica sub-genre that consists of long, minimal periods of silence, punctuated byt he softest, subtlest of sounds.

Recent compositions include a bubbling symphony of boiling tea kettles, the gentle hiss of blank tapes being played through a stereo and the soft bumps of helium balloons hitting the ceiling.

One recent album was so quiet, listeners wondered whether it actually contained any sound at all.

"Lowercase resembles what Rilke called 'inconsiderable things' -- the things that one would not ordinarily pay attention to, the details, the subtleties," said Steve Roden, the Los Angeles artist who coined the term.

Leander Kahney's Wired News piece links to MP3s of a bunch of examples of the genre. Link Discuss