Rich is one of contemporary electronic music’s wunderkinds, each successive work evoking a cinematic grandeur that’s breathtaking in its scope, narrative, and sonic execution.
Like sinking in a warm bath of liquid velvet
Robert Rich’s latest slice of digital tribalism is much like sinking in a warm bath of liquid velvet: plush, inviting, desensitizing, and enveloping all the same. To say that the vast palette of sounds he uses for composition is, well, rich in content and design is but a vast understatement, because virtually no one else can devise such verdant, artfully-contoured landscapes for the mind to immerse itself in. Apparently Rich was inspired by a Taoist poet who juxtaposed ideas about what constitutes home with the more existential concerns of stability and comfort, the notions of which have been rendered even more telling during the recent isolationist eventides that affected us all. That being said, the soothing textures and performances Rich exults are absolute balms for a myriad of ashen outlooks propagated by stressed psyches.
This new outing conjures all kinds of ritualistic tropes and interpersonal nuances; flutes, hand-struck percussives, elegiac guitars, and rising ambient thermals are as pronounced as ever, and even if their characteristics are recognizable from Rich’s last few albums, here they’re realized with a passionate intent every bit reflective of our situational footprints. The opening “Writing on Water,” all willowy reeds, synthi-squelch, and piercing guitar tones reminiscent of both Bill Nelson and Robert Fripp’s stark displays on David Sylvian’s Gone To Earth, is utterly magnificent, and sets the tone for what follows.
A sepia-tinted patina of optimistic longing ::
The entire recording flows as one total, longform work, although Rich’s expertise ensures each indexed track functions as part of a whole. The authentic emotions at play during “What is Home” are eminently powerful, Rich’s chugging percussive loops, ethereal flutes, and upper-atmospheric electronics suggesting Native American climes and the vast loneliness inherent in the visualization of far-flung Western lands. Thrust across an expressionist canvas writ epic in its scope, “Gaps in the Roof Show Sky” revels in its melancholic refrains thanks to Rich’s sharply plucked guitars, lamenting their forlorn lot across subdivided tranches of percolating sound effects and dense clouds of electronica.
Once “Footprints Fade in the Rain” comes to its plaintive conclusion, ushering up a wellspring of gut-wrenching tonalities hardened out of glassine guitars, weeping-willow synths, and a sepia-tinted patina of optimistic longing, you realize that Rich is one of contemporary electronic music’s wunderkinds, each successive work evoking a cinematic grandeur that’s breathtaking in its scope, narrative, and sonic execution.
Traveler’s Cloth is available on Soundscape Productions. [Bandcamp]
