Neurogenesis sits atop a biospheric chassis upon which astride beautifully attenuated sequencer vectors, subtle phasic shifts, and a surfeit of bright starshine poking through the inky blackness.
Rich births new sonic neurons into the body synthetic
Isolationism, simultaneously describing our current state of affairs, its literal Webster definition, and the term designated to a subset of 90s electronica arising from the interstice of dark ambient and industrial drone, surely hasn’t dampened Robert Rich’s fertile imagination or rugged work ethic.
Neurogenesis is his second release in that wholly oppressive year designated 2020, and the music’s very vibrancy runs in stark contrast to its earlier, more ambient brother, Offering to the Morning Fog. Remarkably, each album could well act as definitive bookends to last year’s daily, pivoting, emotionally-frought drama. Where Offering found Rich illuminating expansive twilight zones that suggested nothing less than uncharted, uncertain psychogeographies, Neurogenesis sits atop a biospheric chassis upon which astride beautifully attenuated sequencer vectors, subtle phasic shifts, and a surfeit of bright starshine poking through the inky blackness.
There’s a boldness afoot here, a positivistic, kinetic surge where Rich’s many-splendored electronic tonalities shirk off their silicon origami in a rush of fluid, perfumed greens, blossoming reds, expectant yellows. Harkening back to the similarly-infused pyrotechnics of his classic Rainforest but with a decidedly more pronounced, mechanistic sheen, Neurogenesis, as its titling certifies, is the process by which Rich births new sonic neurons into the body synthetic.
Rich’s many-splendored electronic tonalities shirk off their silicon origami in a rush of fluid, perfumed greens, blossoming reds, expectant yellows.
After gazing long and hard at the title track’s percolating manifold, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Rich has absorbed one too many post-Tangerine Dream cadences and/or Berlin school graduate degrees. Sequencer music has, however, cut across swathes of Terry Riley-influenced minimalism as much as TD/Schulzian mandates; the synth-sequencer renaissance of the last 10+ years provides ample proof of a sub-genre resonating with fertile ideas, the experimental regimes of Krautrock and post-modernist classical groove finding common ground. And Rich channels those modalities to the max; his facility with rhythm programming and chord architecture is unimpeachable, his sense of harmony equally astute; the serpentine patterning that anchors all of Neurogenesis is the beating heart at its core.
Thanks to his dazzling array of PVC flutes and fluid licks of lapsteel guitar, a track such as the stunning “Connective” truly bridges the divide, Rich pantomiming the moonlit dance of Native Americana against farflung, extraterrestrial foleys reclaimed from Area 51. The offworld atmosphere doesn’t get any thinner on the closing “Erinacea,” its laminated sequencer contrails sketching out a newly-minted rainbow dome music, a cascading rush of overtones achieving a near-meditative state Rich in sound and vision.
Neurogenesis is available on Soundscape Productions. [Bandcamp]
