Robert Rich is doing his part to make December more fun. For any order over $20.00 (USD) from our Soundscape order form, they’ll include a copy of Percy Howard’s Meridiem “A Scattering Time” for Free. It’s an intense album, not for everyone, so they’ll only send a copy if you click the box on the form to request it.

Across three decades and over 30 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).

Also, Robert Rich has had many requests for “Perpetual” downloads from purchasers of the Blu-ray. During December they’ll include a free Download Card for FLAC or MP3 files from CD Baby, for anyone who orders the Blu-ray edition. (Or, if you ask Robert Rich directly, he can offer Blu-ray purchasers access to a DropBox folder with MP3 files.)

Robert Rich Discography

• Perpetual – A Somnium Continuum (2014)
• Premonitions 1980-1985 (2014)
• Meridiem – A Scattering Time (2014)
• Morphology (2014)
• Trances & Drones (Reissue, 2013)
• Sunyata & Inner Landscapes (Reissue, 2013)
• Nest (2012)
• Medicine Box (2011)
• Ylang (2010)
• Live Archive Series (2009)
• Zerkalo (with Faryus, 2008)
• React (with Ian Boddy, 2008)
• Eleven Questions (with Markus Reuter, 2007)
• Illumination (2007)
• Atlas Dei – DVD (2007)
• Music from Atlas Dei (2007)
• Electric Ladder (2006)
• Lithosphere (with Ian Boddy, 2005)
• Echo of Small Things (2005)
• Calling Down the Sky (Live, 2004)
• Open Window (2004)
• Temple of the Invisible (2003)
• Outpost (with Ian Boddy, 2002)
• Bestiary (2001)
• Somnium (7 hours, 2001)
• Humidity (Live, 2000)
• Pivot (with Amoeba, 2000)
• Inner Landscapes (1999)
• Below Zero (1998)
• Seven Veils (1998)
• Numena + Geometry (1997)
• Fissures (1997)
• Watchful (with Amoeba, 1997)
• A Troubled Resting Place (1996)
• Stalker (with Lustmord, 1995)
• Yearning (with Lisa Moskow, 1994)
• Propagation (1994)
• Eye Catching (with Amoeba, 1993)
• Soma (with Steve Roach, 1992)
• Gaudi (1991)
• Strata (with Steve Roach, 1990)
• Rainforest (1989)
• Numena (1987)
• Inner Landscapes (1985)

CD Baby 1¢ Shipping | DEC. 1-3, 2014

For three days, December 1-3 (2014) CD Baby is offering 1¢ shipping for orders anywhere in the world. That’s a great deal, especial for purchasers outside of the USA. Also, checkout Robert Rich’s Full Discography.

Across three decades and over 30 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).

Robert Rich on CDBaby.com

• Perpetual – A Somnium Continuum (2014)
• Morphology (2014)
• Somnium (Full Version, 2013)
• Trances & Drones (Reissue, 2013)
• Sunyata & Inner Landscapes (Reissue, 2013)
• Nest (2012)
• Medicine Box (2011)
• Ylang (2010)
• Music from Atlas Dei (2007)
• Illumination (2007)
• Electric Ladder (2006)
• Echo of Small Things (2005)
• Calling Down the Sky (Live, 2004)
• Open Window (2004)
• Temple of the Invisible (2003)
• Bestiary (2001)
• Somnium (7 hours, 2001)
• Humidity (Live, 2000)
• Below Zero (1998)

Live Archive Series (2009)

• Mycosphere: Live on KFJC, May 31 2008
• Lumin: Live at Camerawork, March 6 2008
• Live at Cowell Theater, San Francisco, May 12 2002
• Alien Zoology: Live at Morrison Planetarium, San Francisco, December 9 2001
• Shamballa: Live in Costa Mesa CA, May 20 2000
• Due Acque: Live in Umbria Italy, April 1 2000
• Ici et Maintenant: Live in Paris, May 12 1989

12 different artists were invited to use the sounds from Matt’s 4 drum machine albums as building blocks for new songs.

1. Sirens 01:05
2. The Fnord AM Music (by Toaster) 05:30
3. Reliving Things (by Tim Walters) 02:56
4. Snake Eater (by Jonathan Segel) 04:14
5. The Freshwater Firefly’s Soft Polyps (by Myles Boisen) 03:20
6. Melodica (by Matt Davignon) 03:16
7. Bwack and Bwoo (by Rick Walker) 02:27
8. AM the Music 3 (by subnaught) 05:46
9. Stitches & Mends (by Andrew Weathers) 04:41
10. Selarodavignon (by Selaroda) 05:12
11. …blind; gazing… (by Nat Grant) 05:46
12. Sculpture of a Snowshoe Hare Lying in the Grass (by John Connell) 02:49
13. Ruined Gong (by Sylvain Poitras) 02:31
14. Metamorphosis Behaviour Of Megalopae (by Nux Vomica) 08:07
15. Shivering Tarmac (by Matt Davignon) 05:15

Proceeds for the digital album will support the Outsound New Music series at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco, namely, supplies and perhaps a new mixing board.

Artwork & Design by Jason Hoopes
Mastered by Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha

Gnome & Spybey return with their third release on Crime League entitled ‘Reflective’.

Mark Spybey is no stranger to the annals of experimental ambient music, having been involved in a diverse range of projects such as Download, Zoviet France, Beehatch, and most famously Dead Voices on Air. Tony D’Oporto is another musical veteran with his own project Gnomes of Kush, though his talents have been more in the beat-driven genres of trance, synthpop, house and Down Tempo music. Together, these two masters of atmospheric craft form Gnome & Spybey.

Featuring 10 new songs, including collaborations with Robert Rich, Tom Shear, Simon Polinski, Dominic Smelt and Crime League’s own Displacer.

Available in Limited Edition CD with Poster and digital format November 15, 2014.

See more …

• 01. There are Gnomes
• 02. Achim
• 03. Through My Childs Eyes
• 04. The Ballad of Bernadine Dohrn
• 05. To See With the Eyes of an Angel
• 06. Trois Gnomnes
• 07. Atomes
• 08. Gigantic
• 09. Nine
• 10. A Way to Begin

Written and produced by Tony D’Oporto, Mark Spybey and (2) Tom Shear (3) Michael Morton (5) Dominic Smelt (6 & 7) Robert Rich (10) Simon Polinski

Mastering by Steven Seibold at Uniform Media

Cover art by Christopher Buening Layout

Design by Marco Roberti

Copyright © Gnome & Spybey and Crime League 2014, All rights reserved.

This San Francisco Bay Area ambient pioneer [Robert Rich] began building his own synthesizer at the age of 13 – around the same time he became interested in avant-garde and minimal composition. By the time he got to college at Stanford (around 1981), he began organizing “sleep concerts,” playing abstract drones and soundscapes to influence audiences’ REM cycles. This lecture covers music as ritual, modular synths, mastering advice, magic, sampling tree frogs, and psytrance raves… among many other things.

[Red Bull Music Academy – RBMA]