Hello, Verstappen was 3 tenths slower as (his) last years pole, the Mercedes's however were 1,5 seconds faster-must be totally depressing for everyone, specially for a challenger like Max but his Red Bull mapping has gone out of sync, teammate Albon is even further behind. Max was less then 1 tenth slower than the Ferrari's he'll have a battle for 5th with them, and probably crash with Leclerc, the McLarens would be wise to stay clear...anyway logical as this sounds it's racing, a local thunderstorm might strike Hamiltons car and fry his brains, i know extremely freaky but so was Schumachers skying accident..these things happen.
Tik Tok, Tik Tok. Tik Tok, time is running out for Trump if he wants to start a war with China, a children's piece of software could convince him the US is under attack after all children are the future and they are being corrupted by Chinese software , instead of that good old American mayhem of shoot first ask questions later (if needed), seriously if the US don't get their act together, Xi Jinping will see China dominate the world in his lifetime, decades earlier then planned, the US is in danger of becoming a hell hole once the dollar looses it's buying power...
Today's artist is a man that appeared here earlier (7 years ago) but there is plenty left to ponder on. In the years that followed our man developed a complex range of sounds founded upon the seamless integration of electronic, electric, and acoustic instrumentation, and the exploration of complex tunings. He's made dozens of albums these past 30 years, alas this is my last posting on him ..... N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Across four decades and over 50 albums, Robert Rich has helped define the genres of ambient music, dark-ambient, tribal and trance, yet his music remains hard to categorize. Part of his unique sound comes from using home-made acoustic and electronic instruments, microtonal harmonies, 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 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), Gaudí (1991), Propagation (1994) and Seven Veils (1998). His two collaborations with Steve Roach, Strata (1990) and Soma (1992), both charted for several months in 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). His group, Amoeba, explored 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 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, followed in 2014 by his 15 hour Blu-ray release Perpetual. Rich returned to playing Sleep Concerts once again after 2013 for special performances in Krakow, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Gdansk, USA’s Noise Pop and Moogfest, and elsewhere. His more active music takes him to international festivals such as Boom (Portugal), Klusa Daba (Latvia), Rainbow Serpent and Earth Frequency (Australia), Monsoon (Vietnam), Electric Forest and Earth Dance (USA).
Rich has designed sounds for television and film scores, including the films Pitch Black, Crazy Beautiful, Behind Enemy Lines, Dead Girl and others. His musical scores grace films by Roberto Miller (Mandorla, 2015) Yahia Mahamdi (Thank you for your Patience, 2003) and Daniel Colvin (Atlas Dei, 2007, with 90 minutes of Rich’s music in surround); and a video installation by Michael Somoroff (Illumination, 2007). Rich works closely with electronic instrument manufacturers, and his sound design has filled 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, WayOutWare’s TimewARP2600, and Camel Alchemy. His oscillator wavetables and presets are a part of the DSI-Sequential Prophet 12, Pro 2, Tempest, Prophet 6, Prophet X, Pro 3, and Synthesis Technology modules. Rich has written software for composers who work in just intonation, and he helped develop the MIDI microtuning specification. As mastering engineer and mixer, he has applied his ear to hundreds of albums in all styles. He has been featured in Keyboard Magazine, Electronic Musician, Guitar Player, Innerviews and elsewhere worldwide.
One of Rich's other interests is food. He maintains a Web site of recipes and other food related topics called Flavor Notes. He also has a long list of recipes for wild mushrooms.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
his album was firstly announced by Robert Rich on his website at the end of August and by his words it reminded him the place he was about 30 years ago when recording works like "Trances/Drones" or "Inner Landscapes". Inspired by the natural wonders during Robert's Australian Tour in January/February 2012, "Nest" unfolds with utterly tranquil ambience "Memories Of Wandering, Part 1", precisely bridging wonderfully captivating nature sounds with pristine and luscious piano and trademarking, quietly soaring flute-like sounds. Symphony of chirping bird sounds with gentle rain drops with Robert's virtuosity immerses immediately each listener into dense forest, and even if the night falls, this scenery is absolutely beautiful and contemplative. This peaceful sonic postcard overlaps also to the second part of "Memories Of Wandering", this time less organic, but still deeply soothing with quiet interplay of piano and washes, safely guarded by intangible choirs. This magically colorful sonic stillness holds each journeyer in highly relaxed frame of mind. Amazing flute wizardry invades "Seeking Eden", it's mysteriously yearning and primordial and is as good as anything Robert has recorded with this ancient wind instrument. Hauntingly evocative landscapes are explored through this powerfully distinctive electro-acoustic fusion. "Moss Carpet, Sky Blanket" dives deeply into subterranean realms with gently tinkling bells supported by deeper hissy natural soundscapes and masterful lap steel guitar techniques, sounding nearly like some voice roars. This is Robert Rich at his best and most meditative!!! The next composition, "Generosity Of Solitude", is again divided in two parts, clocking over 8 and 11 minutes. The first part, with piano, drones and occasional bells, is again wrapped by hissy blankets. A quite minimal and silent piece, but incredibly intimate and reflective, and enormously soothing. The second part keeps on the minimal, but effective route, where hazy nature sounds appear rather sporadically, with sparse piano textures interplaying with serenely expansive drones and soaring flute sounds, deeply immersing and bringing back nostalgic moments. Few distant, sort of thunder-like disruptions attractively color this piece as well. Meditative bell sounds and deep drones announce "The Gate Is Open", but soon cinematic drifts along with expressive lap steel guitar artistry join the stage for another highly distinguishing and intense listening experience, a journey showcasing extraordinary innate ability and perfection. "Memories Of Home" get close to 14-minute mark and close this triumphant performance with another expertly harmonizing mixture of piano, drones and flutes, surrounded by a tranquil atmosphere of cicadas and raindrops. "Nest" is musically beautiful and utterly captivating, accomplishing highly sophisticated balance between instrumentation and field recordings. "Nest" is an essential listening for any quiet activity and another virtuoso performance by Robert Rich, one of the giants of the genre.
Robert Rich - Nest ( flac 291mb)
01 Memories of Wandering, Pt 1 5:03
02 Memories of Wandering, Pt 2 3:59
03 Seeking Eden 8:06
04 Moss Carpet, Sky Blanket 7:01
05 Generosity of Solitude, Pt 1 8:03
06 Generosity of Solitude, Pt 2 11:12
07 The Gate Is Open 8:38
08 Memories of Home 13:50
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
“Morphology” is a live album recorded during Darren Bergstein’s home concert series One Thousand Pulses on May 15, 2010. It’s been a while since I listened or reviewed any live music from the most talented Robert Rich, but it’s again a joy to dig this 70-minute electronic & electro-acoustic release, which also contains a few unreleased pieces.
A great mood is already set by the dynamic opener “Alhambra”, which merges tribal rhythms with flute, exciting lap steel guitar and soundscapes. Next are the mysterious but gently unfolding “Attar” and “Vetiver”, where exotic acoustics, textures and flute map out new sonic topographies. Smooth, emotive soundscapes and soft yearnings surface on “Touch-Release”, before the Robert returns to his mesmerizing eclectic style on “Geode”. “The Other Side of Twilight” makes 12 minutes of velvet, hypnotizing atmospherics, followed by the gamelan-rhythms, circular (experimental) soundscapes and mysticism of “Nesting on Cliffsides”. The latter is the toughest track on the album and far too abstract to my taste, which (to a certain degree) also applies to the peculiar 4-minute title track attached to it. It seems Robert lost it on both pieces, but luckily, the groovy outro “Edge of Nowhere” puts things on a positive track again.
Robert Rich - Morphology ( flac 406mb)
01 Alhambra 11:13
02 Attar 6:22
03 Vetiver 6:22
04 Touch-Release 7:17
05 Geode 6:36
06 The Other Side of Twilight 12:28
07 Nesting on Cliffsides 12:52
08 Morphology 4:36
09 Edge of Nowhere 6:13
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
An artist engaged in producing compelling music, Robert Rich's ears are attuned to frequencies of nature as equally as they are to those of the electronic. Containing nine tracks, each uniquely glowing with a self-generated light, Filaments (59'16") is Rich's audible carrier of contemplative messages. His clear steel guitar voice, foregrounded over driving tone patterns, easily activates our mental mechanics. Beneath cavernous reverberations, ghostly traces of sound writhe in shadowland interludes. Within the slow burning, controlled drama of brief quietude, spacey chording rises in chilling synthesizer shades. It is here that simpler flute motifs are permitted to evoke their own sonic poetry. Filaments features an abundance of music built on Rich's exotic rhythmic principles. Within this zone we find mounting kinetic realizations unfurling like a gorgeous dream - with the meticulous braiding of twinned sequencer lines engaged in elevating the thoughts of the listener. Filaments can be exhilarating, with the thrill of this album found in its lingering appeal. It may not be something for everyday listening, but it is there when we really need it. Humans find it hard to articulate the Now, so Robert Rich concerns himself with everything else. In a great structure of thought he has conjured an idealized world of sound where Spacemusic, New Age and the Avant-Garde all share a common spirit. Few musicians reach as high as Robert Rich does. A masterful and skillful work, Filaments will impress Star's End listeners, but aims for an effect beyond logic.
Robert Rich - Filaments ( flac 306mb)
01 Filaments 4:58
02 Majorana 10:45
03 Scintilla 3:47
04 Aetherfields 5:22
05 Entangled 10:54
06 Eulalia 5:44
07 Laniakea 3:54
08 Aetherfolds 3:54
09 Telomere 9:58
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Robert Rich’s restless spirit still retains a collagist’s wicked sense of the surreal, how to both jostle and juxtapose sounds and enhance the molecular divisions between silence and signal. He has long been a champion, enthusiast, and expert knob twiddler of the given technology of the day, but his exploratory nature has found him straddling electroacoustic interfaces as well.
The CD format serves Vestiges well. In fact, it is ideal. This is not some arbitrary statement or glib supposition. Embracing the textured cartography spanning such desolate vistas as the one traversed on “Spectre of Lost Light” speaks volumes on how Rich’s music needs to be interpreted, and that roughly translates into an elimination of the LP’s omnipresent sonic detritus. As Rich executes each electronic whoop and holler with a deft craftsman’s touch, the sheer dynamic potential of what the CD offers is never rendered so impactfully. And the very architecture of Vestiges behooves the format’s lengthy timestamp. The opening clutch of pieces, blending together in a starkly wrought triptych, establishes the album’s tracking shot: smoky, barren landscapes, the whisper of toothless fauna scuttling about, darkly synthetic winds blowing over environs of apocalyptic aftermath in epic lament. Never shy about depicting such bleak atmospheres, the acts of archetypal solace underpinning Rich’s cinematic contours drawn across Vestiges is the leftover mist arising from the first breaths taken on Premonitions, further expounded upon and realized with three-decade hindsight. Rich’s aural poetry is as poignantly reflected in his track titling. “Obscured by Leaf Shadows” posits ceremonial shakers behind contemplative, Budding piano and stricken, whitewashed synths that characteristically shift and eddy behind a metronomic burst of EMP bass pulse. “Equipoise and Dissolution” further extends the ominous metaphors of some unnamed cataclysm bridging worlds past and future, mysterious voices flittering just out of earshot amidst Rich’s trademark manmade flutes and wild-eyed electronics. The finale, nicked with the Dylan Thomas-esque title “Anchorless on Quiet Tide,” is a sixteen-minute edict of tranquility and pause, as Rich’s emotive and sparse piano notes lay adrift in a new-dawn thrush of soft-spoken, whispery tones. Rarely does electronic, née ‘ambient’, music connect two apposite poles with such a gripping statement of intent and become all the Richer for it.
Robert Rich - Vestiges ( flac 311mb)
01 The Fading Shore of Memory 6:20
02 Night Seas Luminesce 6:59
03 Spectre of Lost Light 15:16
04 Obscured by Leaf Shadows 5:27
05 Equipoise and Dissolution 8:49
06 Reborn in Brackish Pools 3:40
07 Anchorless on Quiet Tide 16:00
+ Vestiges PDF
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Tik Tok, Tik Tok. Tik Tok, time is running out for Trump if he wants to start a war with China, a children's piece of software could convince him the US is under attack after all children are the future and they are being corrupted by Chinese software , instead of that good old American mayhem of shoot first ask questions later (if needed), seriously if the US don't get their act together, Xi Jinping will see China dominate the world in his lifetime, decades earlier then planned, the US is in danger of becoming a hell hole once the dollar looses it's buying power...
Today's artist is a man that appeared here earlier (7 years ago) but there is plenty left to ponder on. In the years that followed our man developed a complex range of sounds founded upon the seamless integration of electronic, electric, and acoustic instrumentation, and the exploration of complex tunings. He's made dozens of albums these past 30 years, alas this is my last posting on him ..... N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Across four decades and over 50 albums, Robert Rich has helped define the genres of ambient music, dark-ambient, tribal and trance, yet his music remains hard to categorize. Part of his unique sound comes from using home-made acoustic and electronic instruments, microtonal harmonies, 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 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), Gaudí (1991), Propagation (1994) and Seven Veils (1998). His two collaborations with Steve Roach, Strata (1990) and Soma (1992), both charted for several months in 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). His group, Amoeba, explored 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 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, followed in 2014 by his 15 hour Blu-ray release Perpetual. Rich returned to playing Sleep Concerts once again after 2013 for special performances in Krakow, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Gdansk, USA’s Noise Pop and Moogfest, and elsewhere. His more active music takes him to international festivals such as Boom (Portugal), Klusa Daba (Latvia), Rainbow Serpent and Earth Frequency (Australia), Monsoon (Vietnam), Electric Forest and Earth Dance (USA).
Rich has designed sounds for television and film scores, including the films Pitch Black, Crazy Beautiful, Behind Enemy Lines, Dead Girl and others. His musical scores grace films by Roberto Miller (Mandorla, 2015) Yahia Mahamdi (Thank you for your Patience, 2003) and Daniel Colvin (Atlas Dei, 2007, with 90 minutes of Rich’s music in surround); and a video installation by Michael Somoroff (Illumination, 2007). Rich works closely with electronic instrument manufacturers, and his sound design has filled 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, WayOutWare’s TimewARP2600, and Camel Alchemy. His oscillator wavetables and presets are a part of the DSI-Sequential Prophet 12, Pro 2, Tempest, Prophet 6, Prophet X, Pro 3, and Synthesis Technology modules. Rich has written software for composers who work in just intonation, and he helped develop the MIDI microtuning specification. As mastering engineer and mixer, he has applied his ear to hundreds of albums in all styles. He has been featured in Keyboard Magazine, Electronic Musician, Guitar Player, Innerviews and elsewhere worldwide.
One of Rich's other interests is food. He maintains a Web site of recipes and other food related topics called Flavor Notes. He also has a long list of recipes for wild mushrooms.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
his album was firstly announced by Robert Rich on his website at the end of August and by his words it reminded him the place he was about 30 years ago when recording works like "Trances/Drones" or "Inner Landscapes". Inspired by the natural wonders during Robert's Australian Tour in January/February 2012, "Nest" unfolds with utterly tranquil ambience "Memories Of Wandering, Part 1", precisely bridging wonderfully captivating nature sounds with pristine and luscious piano and trademarking, quietly soaring flute-like sounds. Symphony of chirping bird sounds with gentle rain drops with Robert's virtuosity immerses immediately each listener into dense forest, and even if the night falls, this scenery is absolutely beautiful and contemplative. This peaceful sonic postcard overlaps also to the second part of "Memories Of Wandering", this time less organic, but still deeply soothing with quiet interplay of piano and washes, safely guarded by intangible choirs. This magically colorful sonic stillness holds each journeyer in highly relaxed frame of mind. Amazing flute wizardry invades "Seeking Eden", it's mysteriously yearning and primordial and is as good as anything Robert has recorded with this ancient wind instrument. Hauntingly evocative landscapes are explored through this powerfully distinctive electro-acoustic fusion. "Moss Carpet, Sky Blanket" dives deeply into subterranean realms with gently tinkling bells supported by deeper hissy natural soundscapes and masterful lap steel guitar techniques, sounding nearly like some voice roars. This is Robert Rich at his best and most meditative!!! The next composition, "Generosity Of Solitude", is again divided in two parts, clocking over 8 and 11 minutes. The first part, with piano, drones and occasional bells, is again wrapped by hissy blankets. A quite minimal and silent piece, but incredibly intimate and reflective, and enormously soothing. The second part keeps on the minimal, but effective route, where hazy nature sounds appear rather sporadically, with sparse piano textures interplaying with serenely expansive drones and soaring flute sounds, deeply immersing and bringing back nostalgic moments. Few distant, sort of thunder-like disruptions attractively color this piece as well. Meditative bell sounds and deep drones announce "The Gate Is Open", but soon cinematic drifts along with expressive lap steel guitar artistry join the stage for another highly distinguishing and intense listening experience, a journey showcasing extraordinary innate ability and perfection. "Memories Of Home" get close to 14-minute mark and close this triumphant performance with another expertly harmonizing mixture of piano, drones and flutes, surrounded by a tranquil atmosphere of cicadas and raindrops. "Nest" is musically beautiful and utterly captivating, accomplishing highly sophisticated balance between instrumentation and field recordings. "Nest" is an essential listening for any quiet activity and another virtuoso performance by Robert Rich, one of the giants of the genre.
Robert Rich - Nest ( flac 291mb)
01 Memories of Wandering, Pt 1 5:03
02 Memories of Wandering, Pt 2 3:59
03 Seeking Eden 8:06
04 Moss Carpet, Sky Blanket 7:01
05 Generosity of Solitude, Pt 1 8:03
06 Generosity of Solitude, Pt 2 11:12
07 The Gate Is Open 8:38
08 Memories of Home 13:50
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
“Morphology” is a live album recorded during Darren Bergstein’s home concert series One Thousand Pulses on May 15, 2010. It’s been a while since I listened or reviewed any live music from the most talented Robert Rich, but it’s again a joy to dig this 70-minute electronic & electro-acoustic release, which also contains a few unreleased pieces.
A great mood is already set by the dynamic opener “Alhambra”, which merges tribal rhythms with flute, exciting lap steel guitar and soundscapes. Next are the mysterious but gently unfolding “Attar” and “Vetiver”, where exotic acoustics, textures and flute map out new sonic topographies. Smooth, emotive soundscapes and soft yearnings surface on “Touch-Release”, before the Robert returns to his mesmerizing eclectic style on “Geode”. “The Other Side of Twilight” makes 12 minutes of velvet, hypnotizing atmospherics, followed by the gamelan-rhythms, circular (experimental) soundscapes and mysticism of “Nesting on Cliffsides”. The latter is the toughest track on the album and far too abstract to my taste, which (to a certain degree) also applies to the peculiar 4-minute title track attached to it. It seems Robert lost it on both pieces, but luckily, the groovy outro “Edge of Nowhere” puts things on a positive track again.
Robert Rich - Morphology ( flac 406mb)
01 Alhambra 11:13
02 Attar 6:22
03 Vetiver 6:22
04 Touch-Release 7:17
05 Geode 6:36
06 The Other Side of Twilight 12:28
07 Nesting on Cliffsides 12:52
08 Morphology 4:36
09 Edge of Nowhere 6:13
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
An artist engaged in producing compelling music, Robert Rich's ears are attuned to frequencies of nature as equally as they are to those of the electronic. Containing nine tracks, each uniquely glowing with a self-generated light, Filaments (59'16") is Rich's audible carrier of contemplative messages. His clear steel guitar voice, foregrounded over driving tone patterns, easily activates our mental mechanics. Beneath cavernous reverberations, ghostly traces of sound writhe in shadowland interludes. Within the slow burning, controlled drama of brief quietude, spacey chording rises in chilling synthesizer shades. It is here that simpler flute motifs are permitted to evoke their own sonic poetry. Filaments features an abundance of music built on Rich's exotic rhythmic principles. Within this zone we find mounting kinetic realizations unfurling like a gorgeous dream - with the meticulous braiding of twinned sequencer lines engaged in elevating the thoughts of the listener. Filaments can be exhilarating, with the thrill of this album found in its lingering appeal. It may not be something for everyday listening, but it is there when we really need it. Humans find it hard to articulate the Now, so Robert Rich concerns himself with everything else. In a great structure of thought he has conjured an idealized world of sound where Spacemusic, New Age and the Avant-Garde all share a common spirit. Few musicians reach as high as Robert Rich does. A masterful and skillful work, Filaments will impress Star's End listeners, but aims for an effect beyond logic.
Robert Rich - Filaments ( flac 306mb)
01 Filaments 4:58
02 Majorana 10:45
03 Scintilla 3:47
04 Aetherfields 5:22
05 Entangled 10:54
06 Eulalia 5:44
07 Laniakea 3:54
08 Aetherfolds 3:54
09 Telomere 9:58
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Robert Rich’s restless spirit still retains a collagist’s wicked sense of the surreal, how to both jostle and juxtapose sounds and enhance the molecular divisions between silence and signal. He has long been a champion, enthusiast, and expert knob twiddler of the given technology of the day, but his exploratory nature has found him straddling electroacoustic interfaces as well.
The CD format serves Vestiges well. In fact, it is ideal. This is not some arbitrary statement or glib supposition. Embracing the textured cartography spanning such desolate vistas as the one traversed on “Spectre of Lost Light” speaks volumes on how Rich’s music needs to be interpreted, and that roughly translates into an elimination of the LP’s omnipresent sonic detritus. As Rich executes each electronic whoop and holler with a deft craftsman’s touch, the sheer dynamic potential of what the CD offers is never rendered so impactfully. And the very architecture of Vestiges behooves the format’s lengthy timestamp. The opening clutch of pieces, blending together in a starkly wrought triptych, establishes the album’s tracking shot: smoky, barren landscapes, the whisper of toothless fauna scuttling about, darkly synthetic winds blowing over environs of apocalyptic aftermath in epic lament. Never shy about depicting such bleak atmospheres, the acts of archetypal solace underpinning Rich’s cinematic contours drawn across Vestiges is the leftover mist arising from the first breaths taken on Premonitions, further expounded upon and realized with three-decade hindsight. Rich’s aural poetry is as poignantly reflected in his track titling. “Obscured by Leaf Shadows” posits ceremonial shakers behind contemplative, Budding piano and stricken, whitewashed synths that characteristically shift and eddy behind a metronomic burst of EMP bass pulse. “Equipoise and Dissolution” further extends the ominous metaphors of some unnamed cataclysm bridging worlds past and future, mysterious voices flittering just out of earshot amidst Rich’s trademark manmade flutes and wild-eyed electronics. The finale, nicked with the Dylan Thomas-esque title “Anchorless on Quiet Tide,” is a sixteen-minute edict of tranquility and pause, as Rich’s emotive and sparse piano notes lay adrift in a new-dawn thrush of soft-spoken, whispery tones. Rarely does electronic, née ‘ambient’, music connect two apposite poles with such a gripping statement of intent and become all the Richer for it.
Robert Rich - Vestiges ( flac 311mb)
01 The Fading Shore of Memory 6:20
02 Night Seas Luminesce 6:59
03 Spectre of Lost Light 15:16
04 Obscured by Leaf Shadows 5:27
05 Equipoise and Dissolution 8:49
06 Reborn in Brackish Pools 3:40
07 Anchorless on Quiet Tide 16:00
+ Vestiges PDF
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
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