Los Angeles, CA — KCRW and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) present Currents: A Soundtrack for the David Geffen Galleries, a playlist created by KCRW Music Director Alejandro Cohen along with a special edit of Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe’s composition “Big Empty Country” to be experienced at a Peter Zumthor–designed bench. Open, layered, and in motion, much like Los Angeles itself, Currents meanders across genres, eras, and cultural references, offering visitors a sonic companion as they journey through the galleries. Both sets of tunes are available on Bloomberg Connects and KCRW’s website.
Designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Peter Zumthor, the David Geffen Galleries do not have a single prescribed entrance, and Currents honors that spirit. Though it unfolds with the understanding that many visitors arrive from the north side of Wilshire into the Elaine Wynn Wing overlooking Tony Smith’s Smoke (1967), the mix is designed to meet visitors wherever they are in the building. Structured as a natural, unhurried journey of approximately one hour and 25 minutes, the playlist offers a flexible soundscape rather than a fixed route. The music follows its own arc through the Pacific Ocean galleries, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea, before it concludes in the Atlantic Ocean galleries, whether experienced in sequence or encountered in fragments along the way.
“Music has been a significant part of the Geffen Galleries experience, beginning with the beautiful sonic blessing by Kamasi Washington and his ensembles last summer before the collection was installed,” said LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan. “I’m grateful to KCRW and Alejandro for helping us offer this flowing and widely varied soundscape to our visitors as they discover their own paths through LACMA’s collection.”
“LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries aren’t designed to follow a linear structure and neither is Currents,” said Cohen. “At KCRW, we’re always looking for ways to connect people to the world around them through music, culture, and community. We want the playlist to feel like part of the galleries’ core experience, connecting the art with L.A.’s sprawl unfolding outside the museum walls.”
Also newly unveiled, KCRW presents “Big Empty Country (LACMA Edit)” by Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe, taken from their album Lateral and created for the Zumthordesigned bench. Located along the Wilshire Boulevard overpass, the piece transforms the act of sitting and observing into a listening experience. Designed to accompany the movement of the city just beyond the museum, “Big Empty Country” invites a moment of pause where sound, architecture, and the rhythm of Los Angeles converge. Subtle and immersive, it becomes part of the environment itself, offering a contemplative counterpoint to the constant flow of Wilshire Boulevard. “An art museum is a place you go to have feelings and inhabit other possible worlds.
For us, this piece of music feels like a place, a new land we could imagine living in. Any piece of art is a world in microcosm and we’re grateful for the chance to share this one with LAMCA’s visitors to offer them a chance to pause here,” said Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe.