Each concert is available separately.

This release comes on the 20th anniversary of the 1989 radio concert in Paris that forms the first of these downloads. Each concert appears mostly in its entirety, lightly edited by Rich to fit under 80 minutes per set when needed. A few technical glitches are repaired, but otherwise all the quirks of live performance remain.

Robert Explains:

So, what is Live Archive, and why am I releasing it now? Live Archive consists of 7 concerts that I really enjoyed, whose recordings had a good sound quality and where I played something different from the studio. These are mixing board dubs, recorded at CD quality with my approval. Several of the concerts were completely improvised and do not repeat any studio compositions. A few of the recordings were available as radio streams, torrents, bootlegs or limited CDRs, so I wanted to give people a chance to get mastered, cleaned-up, full resolution versions of these if they wanted. A few of these concerts represent important pivots in my career, and you can hear ideas in their raw stage of formation.

So why did I wait so long to release some of this music? Well, it’s because of the realities of digital download. Back when a “release” meant a CD, and several thousand dollars invested in manufacturing, marketing, packaging and such, I wanted to keep my releases limited to the latest work. But in retrospect, some of these more improvisational moments of the past have value on their own, as action instead of object, like dance relates to sculpture. The download format also allows for longer durations. Manufactured CDs shouldn’t exceed 74 minutes. Some of these sets were 80-90 minutes long. Even now I faced a challenge to edit them down to 80 minute CDR-compatible lengths, so people could back-up their lossless downloads.

In general, I prefer to keep my release schedule sparse rather than dense. So, I am releasing these recordings all at once. I’ll treat this as a single release, although it’s 7 releases as far as the outside world may see it. Since the concerts are available as 7 separate downloads, people can decide which ones they want.

Here’s a short summary of each volume in the series:

Live Archive Volume 1
Ici et Maintenant: Live in Paris, May 12 1989
(Soundscape SP014)
From Robert’s early Geometry and Rainforest period, with hours of previously unreleased music. Melodic sequencers with swift patterned keyboard improvisation, melting down into slow looping textures and flutes.

Live Archive Volume 2
Due Acque: Live in Umbria Italy, April 1 2000
(Soundscape SP015)
A deep ambient journey performed at a private concert in Italy for fans of Robert’s slowest and most introspective music, previously unreleased.

Live Archive Volume 3
Shamballa: Live in Costa Mesa CA, May 20 2000
(Soundscape SP016)
A dynamic live concert from the era of Humidity, blending moments of pure sonic improvisation with melodic pieces from the Fathom-era catalog.

Live Archive Volume 4
Alien Zoology: Live at Morrison Planetarium, San Francisco, December 9 2001
(Soundscape SP017)
A wide-ranging planetarium concert that opens with modular analog sequences and moves into pieces from Outpost, Bestiary and ’90s Fathom-era material.

Live Archive Volume 5
Live at Cowell Theater, San Francisco, May 12 2002
Soundscape SP018
One of the more melodic concerts in the series, opening with piano and guitar improvisations, then moving into tracks from Bestiary and other rhythmic pieces from the last decade.

Live Archive Volume 6
Lumin: Live at Camerawork, March 6 2008
(Soundscape SP019)
A shimmering improvisatory sound environment, where harmonics blur into waves of pure abstraction, performed live with multiple projections of films by Paul Clipson. New music.

Live Archive Volume 7
Mycosphere: Live on KFJC, May 31 2008
(Soundscape SP020)
A radio performance for Day of Drone, where Robert explores the slow depths with abstract organic soundscapes and glurp. New music.

via Robert Rich

A collection of short science fiction and surreal stories by Matt Howarth, based on the compositions of ambient pioneer Robert Rich.

Embark on a series of fantastic voyages, where you’ll encounter:

• the link between a massive brushfire and aboriginal cave art,
• a mathematician’s quest into the desert,
• giant lizards orbiting the Earth,
• an old man captivated by dancing moss in a park,
• a kidnapping in the new Ice Age,
• the music a lonely lighthouse keeper uses to while away the nights,
• the fate of the last Martians
• the unnatural hunger of Dame Procol’s new lifeforms,
• a man in search of amnesia,
• an antique dealer specializing in artifacts from the 21st Century’s texplosion era,
• an alien spire that reaches beyond the sky, and more.

This book also features story notes in which Howarth and Rich discuss the connections between the stories and the source music.”

Enriched Visions is available for $17.50.

If you’ve read Enriched Visions, leave a comment with your thoughts!

this interview was recorded over a telephone conversation and is between robert rich and myself, tanner menard. i have decided here to present my questions to rich in written form rather than in recorded form. my decision to do this was based on two factors. robert rich’s portion of the conversation stands out and is an important message about his original conception of the sleep concert. i believe his voice deserves to stand alone, and see this as a sort of theory lesson in sleep concerts for the future. and secondly, the recording qualities of each side of the phone conversation were too vastly different to work as a publishable sonic item. i hope that many more sleeping events will come about because of this new world wide interest in sleep concerts. as robert rich points out in this interview, all night musical events have been happening for thousands of years, and sleep concerts are one way in which we can bring sacred conscious raising ritual back into our modern lives through art and sound. i hope that these recordings can stand as a model for composers and artists in the future who wish to carry this process of sleep music into the future.

Tanner Menard plans on presenting Sommeil: Concert for Sleep in New Orleans on April 11-12.

Tanner Menard, Antenna Gallery and Experimedia Records plan to present Sommeil: Concert for Sleep in New Orleans on April 11-12.

Sommeil will be an all-night event beginning at 10:00 pm on Saturday, April 11th, and ending on Sunday, April 12th, at 7:00 am. Participants are asked to slowly fall asleep while live ambient and environmental music is performed through the night by Tanner Menard.

Sommeil: Concert for Sleep will be Menard’s reinterpretation of the sleep concert experiment, first created by Robert Rich in 1982. It will be presented at the Antenna Gallery, 3161 Burgundy St., New Orleans, LA 70117, in he heart of the St Claude Arts District. The concert will be realized with Rich ’s permission and guidance.

Sounds like this could be an awesome evening. Details below.

Sleep concerts are all-night events in which the audience is asked to attend the concert with a sleeping bag and pillow and to fall asleep while slowly unfolding sonic texture evolves over he course of the night and into the morning. People attending the event are asked to be willing to sleep during the event or at least to remain silent during the course of the nine hour experience.

Not merely a recreation of Rich’s original idea, Sommeil is a conceptual, global remix of a performance type that addresses one of the most basic functionalities of ambient and environmental sound; music by which to sleep.

In the spirit of remix and the Creative Commons movement, Menard, Louisiana native, has compiled submissions of audio material for the concert from nearly seventy artists across the globe. These artists answered a call for submissions marketed online by Experimedia Records which asked for music and field recordings to be used, remixed and mashed up during this nocturnal event.

Submissions include drones, found sound, recordings of natural and unnatural environments and synthetic music created on synthesizers and computers. Submitters have included radio scientists, geologists, psychologists, sound artists, musicians, composers, installation artists as well as several well-known figures in the ambient music scene.

During the course of the evening, Menard will remix these sleep submissions into a constantly evolving sonic texture that will lull the audience to sleep. Quad-channel surround sound system will be provided by Piety St Studios for maximum sonic enhancement of the sleep space and ambient video lighting will be provided in the form of a video loop by the internationally acclaimed VJ HIKA. Experimedia Records has  agreed to release multiple out takes from this concert on its internet label under a free Creative Commons license.

Sommeil: Concert for Sleep will be nine hours of uninterrupted music beginning at 10:00 pm on Saturday April 11th and ending at 7:00 am on Sunday April 12th at Antenna Gallery. Tickets to the evening event will be $15 and will include a light breakfast at waking time.

During the day of April 11th, Antenna Gallery will be opening the space to allow people who do not wish to sleep through the night to hear the original submissions from the international community of artists. Organizers are asking $5 per hour to experience the meditative environment of the sleep space and $3 per half an hour from noon to 9:00 pm on Saturday April 11th.

Information via Ephemeral Radio

Robert Rich demonstrates the Synthesis Technology MOTM-730 Voltage-Controlled Pulse Divider.

The MOTM-730 is use to “divide down” an input signal (usually from a LFO or VCO) to produce multiple square wave outputs. The MOTM-120 Sub-Octave Mux is a simple version of this module (it divides by 2, 4, 8 and 16 only).

via MOTMsynth

These are a set of videos that capture ambient musician Robert Rich performing live at Klusa Daba (Riga).

Robert Rich Live At Klusa Daba Part II

Click here to view the embedded video.

Robert Rich Live At Klusa Daba Part III

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVbODZYCG5w

Robert Rich Live At Klusa Daba Part IV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS6OXfI_TH8

This is a video for Robert Rich & B. Lustmord’s Elemental Trigger, from Stalker.

This is a short video of Robert Rich and Ian Boddy, captured live at the Stars End 30th Anniversary Space Music Festival.

If any readers made it to the concert, please leave a comment with your thoughts!

Ambient electronic musician Robert Rich has penned a great response to a piece by Wired’s Kevin Kelly that suggested that musicians should strive for 1000 true fans:

I agree strongly with your basic thesis, that artists can survive on the cusp of the long tail by nurturing the help of dedicated fans; but perhaps I can modulate your welcome optimism with a light dose of realism, tempered by some personal reflections.

I have operated on a premise similar to yours for almost 30 years now, before the internet made the idea more feasible. I wanted to make the sort of uncompromising quiet introspective music that moved me deeply when I first heard others do it back in the mid ’70’s. Because of the lingering aftermath of the popularization of psychedelic culture, certain memes leaked out from the avant garde into pop culture, and publishers from the old model were willing to try marketing experimental art-forms to the mainstream. Thus, into the mind of a suburban adolescent growing up in Silicon Valley, merged the unlikely combination of European space-music, minimalism, baroque, world music and industrial/punk, most of which received the benefits of worldwide distribution and marketing – even though we all considered it “underground” at the time.

That means, I grew up as a benefactor of the old system, before demographic marketing analysis helped to cripple the spread of radical thought across subcultural boundaries. I realized from this leakage of experimental culture into the mainstream, that I wanted to be an artist like the ones that moved me deeply. I wanted to speak my personal truth, regardless of the cost. I wanted to serve the role of a modern shaman, while embracing the complexities and ironies of our modern world.

When one sets a course like this, one quickly ponders the financial realities of obscurity. I remember telling myself when I was about 15, “If I can move one person deeply, that’s better than entertaining thousands of people but leaving nothing meaningful behind.” That’s the long tail talking. I suppose when you multiply this idea by a thousand, you have your thesis.

Please check out Robert’s site and read the full piece – raising awareness of this is important for anyone interested in electronic music.

The reality is that serious electronic music is a niche that needs to be nurtured. Obviously, one way is for artists like Rich to cultivate their relationships with their “superfans” – but musicians need to experiment with new ways of making money, too.

These are very exciting times for electronic music – but they are also challenging ones for artists that have spent years building careers, just to find that the ground they built upon is shifting.

via Techmeme

The new release, React, is a live collaboration with Ian Boddy. Here’s what Rich has to say about it:

React is the third collaboration between Robert Rich and British synthesist Ian Boddy. However, unlike their previous two studio outings on the DiN label, Outpost (2001) and Lithosphere (2005), this is a record of their first ever live performance at the Star’s End Radio Show 30th Anniversary Celebration Concert in Philadelphia in June 2007.

The duo forge a fascinating sonic collaboration that offers glimpses into each musician’s personality within the evolving musical landscape. Boddy is mainly responsible for the rhythmic content which he mutates and morphs from the sonic input of Rich’s MOTM modular system. Meanwhile Rich paints a tapestry of sound with hovering keyboards, flutes and his trademark gliss lap steel guitar voicing. The duo references two tracks from Outpost (Ice Fields and The Edge of Nowhere) and the title track of Lithosphere, but presents them in more energized and dynamic versions, in a set filled with improvisations and fresh material.

The music ebbs and flows from abstract soundscapes through gentle reveries to up tempo sections that combine thunderous analog bass and glitchy percussion overlain with a mesmerizing mix of keyboards, flutes and steel guitar. A truly unique performance.

Rich has also given his site a much needed overhaul. The new site is gorgeous and easy to navigate.

There are a few things he hasn’t moved over from his old site, though, so he’s kept an archive of the old site around, also.

Robert Rich Concert In Des Moines, originally uploaded by Synthesizers.

Robert Rich with his rig before a recent concert in Des Moines.

Robert is a great guy and if you have the chance to see him perform, get to the concert. At the Des Moines show, there was a guy and his girlfriend that drove all the way from Chicago.

The concert was a fantastic multimedia show – great music and Rich previewed Atlas Dei.

Somnium is thought to be the longest continuous musical composition ever released in any format. Because of its scale, it presented unique challenges, and previous versions of the work required compromises.

Rich says that a new digital download version of Somnium addresses these compromises:

“I was always a bit frustrated with the compromises I had to make on the DVD release of Somnium, especially the compression on the middle chapter and the lack of navigation, both a result of space restrictions on the DVD-V format.

When Ian Boddy told me about his partnership with the new Musiczeit website, I asked if they would be able to handle really big files. It seems they can. So, I uploaded full resolution FLAC (lossless compressed) files of Somnium, divided into thirds like the DVD, along with 256 bit MP3 files that people can download for about the same price as the DVD.

I plan to keep Somnium in print as a DVD through Hypnos, but it seems that the new downloadable formats might be a good home for such a long musical recording.”

This sounds like a great new option for delivering new types of music.

Ambient artist Robert Rich sends news of his latest tour and some news CDs.

If you’re into ambient electronica and you’ve never seen Rich in concert, you should definitely try to make one of these dates. He’s performing some of his latest work, along with the video piece Atlas Dei.

2007 Tour Dates – May & June

Saturday June 9
Memphis TN
Psychology Auditorium, University of Memphis
Info: Contact allanbogle@hotmail.com, or call
901-832-3598

Saturday June 16
Philadelphia PA
Stars’ End 30th Anniversary Concert
Iron Gate Theater, 37th & Chestnut, U. Penn campus
Solo + Duet performance with Ian Boddy (First time!); Also: Jeff Pierce
Purchase tickets as donation to XPN: go to http://xpn.org
click “support the music”, complete form, scroll down to “thank you gift”
select either: $60.00 – ONE ticket to Star’s End 30th Anniversary Spacemusic Festival
or $120.00 – TWO tickets to Star’s End 30th Anniversary Spacemusic Festival

Thursday June 21
New York City
Bravin Lee Programs Gallery – offsite, 508 West 26th Street, Ground Floor.
Opening of video installation “Illumination I” by Michael Somoroff
with sound installation by Robert Rich.
This is not a live performance, just an art opening.
Robert’s new CD “Illumination” is the score for this installation until August 10.

Sunday June 24
Bethlehem, PA
Nearfest – North East Art Rock Festival
Zoellner Arts Center, Leheigh University
Robert Rich performs from 2:45 to 3:15 on day 2 of the festival
More info at www.nearfest.com

Thursday June 28
Minneapolis, MN
Cedar Cultural Center
416 Cedar Ave. South
More info at www.thecedar.org

Rich also has three new releases:

• The DVD: Atlas Dei is a feature-length movie of high resolution motion graphics by Daniel Colvin, in panoramic 3:1 aspect ratio, with letterbox. It features 90 minutes of 5 channel surround mixes by Robert Rich. Those of you who saw Robert perform in 2006 will be familiar with these visuals, which accompanied Robert during the concerts.
• The companion CD called Music from Atlas Dei focuses on the new pieces recorded specifically for the film. It also includes older compositions that are edited, layered, remixed and augmented from previous releases. The music from the film that does not appear on this CD more closely resembles previous versions.
• Michael Somoroff’s Illumination – music composed by Robert Rich. The title might sound complicated, but this new CD features over an hour of new deep ambient music by Robert Rich, created specifically to accompany five videos by artist Michael Somoroff during an installation at a New York City gallery. The music falls on the slow and shadowy side of Robert’s output, a bit like Trances/Drones or Below Zero. The installation has a close tie to painter Mark Rothko, as Somoroff created a large sculpture (connected to this exhibit) for the Rothko Chapel in Houston TX, recently relocated to the Aldrich museum in Ridgefield CT.

Image: Jamie Todd

Digital Music store Fake Science has released three live concert performances by synthesist Robert Rich. The MP3 downloads are sets recorded at concerts in San Francisco.

Rich is one of the pioneers of ambient music. His music has a unique sound that combines home-made acoustic and electronic instruments, microtonal tunings, computer-based signal processing, chaotic systems and feedback networks.

The downloads are $5 each, and previews are available at the Fake Science site.

“Atlas Dei is currently in the final phase of preparation before manufacturing,” says Rich. “The creative work is done, and we hope to have copies available for purchase by May.”

I was able to catch a live performance of Rich to a working copy of Atlas Dei when he performed in Des Moines last year. The work is a landmark combination of surrealist paintings in motion and Rich’s alternate-world ambient music.

Here’s a preview of the DVD:

A companion CD, Music from Atlas Dei, will focus on the new pieces recorded specifically for the film. It will also include older compositions that are edited, layered, remixed and augmented from previous releases.

Atlas Dei promises to be one of the most important electronica releases this year.

Enriched Visions

Description:

Embark on a series of fantastic voyages, where you’ll encounter: the link between a massive brushfire and aboriginal cave art, a mathematician’s quest into the desert, giant lizards orbiting the Earth, an old man captivated by dancing moss in a park, a kidnapping in the new Ice Age, the music a lonely lighthouse keeper uses to while away the nights, the fate of the last Martians, the unnatural hunger of Dame Procol’s new lifeforms, a man in search of amnesia, an antique dealer specializing in artifacts from the 21st Century’s texplosion era, an alien spire that reaches beyond the sky, and more.

This book also features story notes in which Howarth and Rich discuss the connections between the stories and the source compositions.

Enriched Visions is available as a digital download from Howarth’s site, BugTownMall.com.

Robert Rich has also has a new release, Electric Ladder.

Description:

On Electric Ladder, Robert Rich finds a new voice for the vibrant interlocking melodies that characterized his works such as Numena, Geometry and Gaudi. With its seamless blend of analog modular synthesis and acoustic tonalities, Electric Ladder weaves a hypnotic spell – lush, ecstatic and seductive. Its shimmering geometric lines grow more sharply etched with the clarity of justly tuned instruments and the intelligence that pervades Rich’s compositional vocabulary.

Contributors include reed player Paul Hanson and guitarist Haroun Serang.

More information and audio samples are available from RobertRich.com.

Longtime friends Agasi and Rich inspire each other with image and sound. Ten of Agasi’s haunting sensual photos unite with Rich’s calm reflective soundscapes in this collaboration, “focusing eye and ear on the beauty of the intimate and peripheral. The music suggests an audio journey through shifting physical landscapes, permeated by a subtle human presence, as if viewed through the ears of an aural observer.”

In a limited production, 125 custom boxes contain ten high quality mat fibre offset prints, a signed and numbered page with artists’ comments, and CD of music by Robert Rich. The CD alone is also available without the prints. You can learn more about the project on Rich’s website, with previews of the package.

Echo of Small Things

Rich is best known for his organic ambient electronic music, and his collaborations with other electronic music artists such as Steve Roach and Kevin Braheny. He uses analog and digital synths, a state-of-the-art modular analog synthesizer, and heavily processed flute and guitar to build soundscapes in his “glurp” style.

On Open Window, he excercises his piano chops and goes “unplugged”. Rich explains the origin of his latest music:

“I occasionally begin my concerts with piano improvisations. Afterwards, people often ask me if I would release a piano album. Well, here it is!

I chose to record this album on the 1925 A.B. Chase baby grand that sits in my studio, an instrument with a more intimate sound than a full-size concert piano. Over a period of two months, I kept a daily schedule of piano improvisation, with microphones set up to record at all times. The pieces selected here reflect special moments during this concentrated period. These were the moments when effort vanished, and the music seemed to write itself. The pieces on Open Window show influences ranging from Alan Hovhannes, G.I. Gurdjieff and Erik Satie to Terry Riley and Keith Jarrett.”

Rich is releasing Open Window on his own Soundscape label.

Inner Landscapes was recorded live at one of Rich’s long improvised concerts. This concert was about three-hours long, but others have run much longer.

The music highlights Rich’s skill as an improviser. However, don’t expect any be-bop licks. Rich improvises on a variety of instruments, and his programming and playing is tailored to his style of music. Over the course of the album, Rich plays bamboo flutes, steel guitar, a custom modular synthesizer, and Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 and Six Trak synthesizers.

Though he uses a variety of electronic and acoustic instruments, the way he plays and the way he treats the sounds with reverberation tend to extend and blend the sounds, lending them an otherworldly quality, and making them less identifiable.

The music begins with what sounds like insect noises. These chirping noises continue throughout the various sections, so that they fade into the background, but still help tie the pieces together. The insect noises and the dark textures that Rich uses create alien landscapes, much like Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land.

Rich’s reverb-drenched flute is also reminiscent of some of Paul Horn’s work. The pieces that feature his flute playing create some of the more intense sections of the music. The flute sounds, combined with the deep reverberation, resonate so that the sound evolves and grows. Rich makes the flute emerge from nothing and grow to be loud, so that the flute sound seems to surround you.

This album is a treat for fans of space music and dark ambient music. It’s beautiful and haunting, and can be listened to with many different levels of attention. It gives one a taste of what one of Rich’s long concerts is like, but doesn’t betray itself as being a live performance.

The CD falls into the ambient space style, but is unmistakeably Rich and Roach. Roach plays a variety of analog and digital synthesizers, sequencers, and samplers, while Rich adds his take on synthesizers and samplers, steel guitar, percussion, and flutes. Both musicians contribute glurp, which can’t really be described, but accurately descripes some of the submerged sounds they make.

On Strata, the two ambient space artists create ten tracks. Some sound distinctively like Roach; others more like Rich, and some like a weird blend of their styles. “Iguana” is one of the tracks that mixes their two individual styles especially well. Roach plays the slowly evolving string washes common to many of his albums. Rich contributes synthesizer solo using a non-tempered tuning.

“Magma” and “Persistence of Memory” are ambient soundscapes that reflect more of Roach’s influence. The sounds are a combination of “musical” sounds, like Roach’s string washes, and various noises treated with echoes and reverbs.

“Rememberance” is the closest thing to a tune on the album. On this track, Rich uses steel guitar to create submerged sounds. The tune is short, but melodic in a quiet way.

Strata is great work from both Rich and Roach. Their styles blend well together to create a CD of quiet, reflective ambient music. The CD is paced well, too. There are no tracks that seem out of place, and you can listen to it straight through without feeling jarred by any of the tracks.

Robert Rich and Steve Roach unique styles combine to make Strata a classic album of ambient space music.