Composer John Cage famously mused, “I have nothing to say and I am saying it.” If you’re frustrated by that sentiment, stop reading right here. If you’re into it, Glenn Kotche and So Percussion have something just for you. At its best Drumkit Quartets (Cantaloupe Music) is beguiling and offers a meditative listening experience. But this music will be difficult to deal with if you’re worried about where it’s going or what it’s trying to do.

In a single piece (“Drumkit Quartet #51”), the first track ranges from a simple marimba figure to some barely rhythmic musique concrete to a very hip happening featuring Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda reciting a haiku on off-set and overlapping left and right channels. It’s disjointed, and the pieces don’t fit neatly together. Kotche and his partners seem to be asking, “What do you make of this?” Most of the pieces are not so long, though, and usually fixate on a single idea or experiment. “Drumkit Quartet #3, Mvt. 1” sounds like a four-year-old playing around with a high-hat. On the second movement, the group shows off their collection of triangles, some of which are digitally altered to play in reverse. The third movement is almost entirely melodic percussion: chimes, steel drum, and glockenspiel. These are playful distractions, but don’t expect them to add up to more than the sum of their parts.

The sound that kicks off “Drumkit Quartet #50” could be a vacuum cleaner, a race car, a kazoo, or an air raid siren. Eventually, it has several companions operating in close harmonic range and it all adds up to a real nuisance. Most of the rest of the piece sounds like So Percussion are cleaning out their attic, sometimes with soap and water, sometimes just scraping off the old paint. It’s mysterious, but rather than trying to solve the conundrum, you’d be better off simply asking (again and again), “What is this?” Whether you relish that process will have a lot to do with whether you enjoy the radical experience that this album offers.