| Artist: Robert Rich Album: Humidity Label: Hypnos |   |
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From the new age accessibility of Rainforest to the international fusion of Seven Veils, the soundworlds of Trances and Drones and the evocative spacemusic of Numena, the music of Robert Rich is well known to STAR'S END listeners. Rich's latest release is the epic 3CD set Humidity, a condensed record of three concerts that dealt with the areas explored on his noted works Stalker (w/Lustmord) and Night Sky Replies.
While Robert Rich has become well known as a giver of the occasional nine hour Sleep Concert, the performances Humidty has been drawn from do more than just fill up the sleep space. The music is contemplative and subterranean but there is motion, power and activity present as well. Rich has always been good at producing music that conjures up mental images of lost places, visited through the absorbtion of his music. Analysis usually credits this to Rich's unique instrumentation which includes steel guitar, ethnic percussion and bamboo and homemade flutes. His skill at programming synths and sampler is often cited too, as is Rich's use of environmental recordings, the use of non-western scales to further de-stabilize the listener and the craft of effect processing to further manipulate the sound he realizes. But these are all just tools by which Rich demonstrates an immeasurable factor often referred to as talent but felt by the listener as spirit. - Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END | |
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