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Written by magnatune
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Saturday, 15 September 2007 |
| | Trances-Drones | | Robert Rich |
On this essential album Robert Rich reprises the "sleep concert" format that made him famous, so the music is both wonderfully relaxing and perpetually fascinating. There's a lot going on in this material--layer after layer of swirling textures and tones. It's so mesmerizing, in fact, that you'll find yourself startled if one of the pieces is interrupted prematurely: Rich has a talent for finding the mind's natural rhythms, which means that the music naturally steers you toward a mysterious and deeply satisfying state of equilibrium. CD 1 features the trances side of the Trances-Drones dyad.
m3u audio streams (if the flash player above doesn't work for you):
[hifi lofi] Play all tracks as an m3u audio stream (or xspf)
[hifi lofi] 01--Cave Paintings- (23:52)
[hifi lofi] 02--Hayagriva- (25:12)
[hifi lofi] 03--Sunyata (Emptiness)- (22:48)
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"Robert Rich's solo and collaborative recordings have proven extremely influential on a range of new school ambient and experimental artists." —Allmusic.com
"Nothing, not one note, seems out of place or contrived...a bright and attractive fusion of the ancient and the modern, a bold groundbreaking musical statement." —Dreamsword
With over two dozen albums under his belt, Robert Rich has helped define the genres of ambient and dark-ambient music, yet his work remains hard to categorize. Part of his unique sound comes from using home-made acoustic and electronic instruments, as well as microtonal tunings, computer-based signal processing, chaotic systems, and feedback networks. Rich began building his own analog synthesizers in 1976 when he was 13 years old, and he later studied for a year at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).
Rich released his first album, Sunyata, in 1982. Most of his subsequent recordings came out in Europe until 1989, when Rich began a string of critically acclaimed releases for Fathom/Hearts of Space, including Rainforest (1989), Gaudi (1991), Propagation (1994) and Seven Veils (1998). His two collaborations with Steve Roach, Strata (1990), and Soma (1992), both charted for several months on Billboard. Other respected collaborations include Stalker (1995 with B. Lustmord), Fissures (1997 with Alio Die) and Outpost (2002 with Ian Boddy.) Rich's contributions to multi-artist compilations have been collected on his solo albums A Troubled Resting Place (1996) and Below Zero (1998). He also records with his group, Amoeba, exploring atmospheric songcraft on their CDs Watchful (1997) and Pivot (2000). Live albums such as Calling Down the Sky (2004) and 3-CD Humidity (2000) document the unique improvised flow of his recent performances.
Rich has performed in caves, cathedrals, planetaria, art galleries and concert halls throughout Europe and North America. His all-night "Sleep Concerts," first performed in 1982, became legendary in the San Francisco area. In 1996 he revived his all-night concert format, playing Sleep Concerts for live and radio audiences across the U.S. during a three month tour. In 2001 Rich released the 7 hour DVD Somnium, a studio distillation of the Sleep Concert experience, possibly the longest continuous piece of music ever released.
Rich has designed sounds for television and film scores, including the films Pitch Black, Crazy Beautiful, Behind Enemy Lines and others. His musical score graces Yahia Mehamdi's documentary on worker's compensation, Thank You for your Patience. Rich has worked closely with electronic instrument manufacturers, and his sound design fills the preset libraries of Emu's Proteus 3 and Morpheus, Seer Systems' Reality, sampling disks Things that Go Bump in the Night, ACID Loop Library Liquid Planet, and the TimewARP2600 soft-synth by WayOutWare. Rich has written software for composers who work in just intonation, and he helped develop the MIDI microtuning specification, which was accepted as an industry standard. As mastering engineer, he has applied his ear to dozens of albums, and his studio was featured twice in Keyboard Magazine.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 17 September 2007 )
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Transfado
Cinematographic