So-ōn fuses field recordings and found sounds with live instrumental material, processed and reconstituted through experimental digital techniques. The piece draws on the early twentieth-century Japanese aesthetic project Sō-on no naka kara umareru kōjō ongaku (Factory music born from noise), which emerged during the Second World War. The unprecedented noise of the new machinery led to the surreal enforcement of female workers singing operas composed specifically to distract themselves from the sound of the machinery. Responding to this dissonant historical moment, So-ōn stages a tension between imposed sonic order and mechanical excess, with performer negotiating and reconfiguring the soundscape in real time. The electronic component includes field recordings and transformed fragments of the quartet’s own playing, creating a recursive sonic ecology that evolves with each performance.