Customer Reviews

Trances & Drones

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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Robert Rich has been composing stunning ambient music for two decades now. Fans will recognize his recent HUMIDITY concert recordings, and wonder if early recordings of "sleep concerts" exist. Well, sort of. Recorded in 1983, after a successful series of 9-hour "sleep concerts" in the Northern California region, TRANCES and DRONES perfectly showcase his deeply purposeful use of textures and gently developing environments. The albums preceed his early classic, NUMENA, by 3 years, and also predate the more melodic and rhythmically complex works. This is pure ambient music, mesmerizing and gently effecting. His penchant for dark atmospheres and "psychoactive music" (Robert's own label for this brand of ambient music) was later displayed with B.Lustmord in STALKER. I review other Rich albums on my own site...

Having been a fan of Steve Roach for many years I first heard of Robert Rich on the Roach/Rich collaboration "Soma" which is one of my favorite non-space CDs ("Silk Ridge" off the "Soma" album is the all-time eerie haunting expression of loneliness). Anyway, I would have to say that Trances/Drones is as close to pure "Space Music" as I have ever heard...and both CDs too. No strings, drums, ethnic diversions, etc. Just pure suspension with long (avg. 20 minutes per cut) duration textures. I would rate this album and "Structures From Silence" by Steve Roach as the purest space albums I have ever heard. It is hard to find "pure" Space Music any more. Even the latest CDs by Rich and Roach are more "rhythmic". I am using Trances/Drones to fall asleep at night. I get a deeper sleep when they are playing. I also play them while I work and find the music heightens my creativity. Rich was a psychology major. I think he was onto something. Trances/Drones is exactly what the title implies. Fantastic!

Though Rich is known for dark ambient works this is more sonambulent. Not much darkness at all...just very soothing drones with just a hint of melody or structure change to keep you interested. Great for yoga, meditation or just some relaxation before sleep. This is one of my favorite ambient cd's.

I bought trances and drones in 1996 and have been playing it off and on ever since, Sometimes I play this for weeks at a time. All I can say is this is an incredible Cd and no serious fan of Robert Rich or Steve Roach should be without it. This Cd is a masterpiece for this type of ambient.

This double disc represents a definitive
entry into Robert Rich's extended 'sleep'
series. I believe he actually did a few
'sleep concerts' as well in the early 1990s.
While it is true that this music is PERFECT to
sleep too, it is good for pure listening and/or
background music as well, and as such, in its way,
answers to the ENOchian definition of ambient music.
The comparison stops there, as there is nothing here
that 'sounds like' eno, though fellows like Rich
are obviously familiar with work such as On Land and
Roach's Quiet Music etc -
this music does seem to give one that late night/early
morning setting, but also holds this feeling of the
serinity and timelessness of 'sleep'.
Robert uses synths and accoustic instuments to
creat extended and slowly evolving soundscapes
which evoke all manner of nocturnal imageries.
The music offers a quiet lushness which, to be
frank, I never grow tired of. I feel this way
about a lot of Roberts music - he's simply
a master at what he does, the best.

If you dwell in a cube 8+ hours a day, put on a good set of headphones for your escape from the hallway chatter and your neighbor's speaker phone. Trances & Drones is a double CD, defining two essential ambient electronic styles. For cube-dwellers, you need go no further than Trances, in which several tracks are built from long unbroken loops of burbling, marimba-like streams. This will keep you happily on-task hours at a time. It's like rain on a roof, only given melody and harmony.

This compilation, "Trances and Drones" collects the best of Robert Rich's early years. This means all of the 2nd and 3rd albums "Drones" and "Trances", respectively, as well as one track from his first album, "Sunyata", and a track that was before this point unreleased.

One of the disks is "Drones", which originally contained two tracks but now comes with one extra.

With opener "Seascape", Rich created his first real masterpiece. Half an hour of sound that may have been improvised, but regardless creates a coherent world. Mournful, wandering, anxious thoughts rush quietly over the sounds of shore in the form of warm synth chords. Song title and sound have combined to become Rich's first real theme piece. It's a song for a sunset on the coast, sketched, it would seem, by someone with plenty of demons and preoccupations. The dark, unsettling feel of "Sunyata" continues here. The production is the same thick, soupy murk. This time, however, Rich seems to have a clearer idea of what he's going for. By the end of the piece, we've drifted a long way from where we started. A pure, resonant guitar echoes across the surface of the water from miles away, the first inkling of the ambient guitar sound he'd use so much in later years. "Seascape" fades out.

The other piece from the original release, "Wheel of Earth", is a lot more static, and reminds me of watching clouds pass slowly overhead. The whooshing, airy sound of the song, as well as its overall pacing, are very reminiscent of clouds, and recall Steve Roach's work. Hauntingly slow, lonely synth notes ring like sirens in the mist. A feeling of hugeness is achieved. It's not as emotionally involving as "Seascape", but still transports the listener, and hypnotizes the listener the same way as can the gradual movement of the clouds. A solid track, although modern technology has helped this kind of thing greatly in the last couple decades. Just check out Steve Roach and Vidna Obmana's "Well of Souls" double album to see what I mean.

The third track, the shorter, 12 minute "Resonance", is new available on this new double disk reissue. The song is what its title indicates, pretty much - a cold, distant, resonant hum, evoking industrial machines with their hums and whirs, but so far underwater that theor sounds are rounded, faint, more like ghosts. It's an uneventful, simple but remarkably dark piece, and a good addition to these two albums.

The other disk is "Trances", which has two tracks. Here Rich begins to expand his sound palette, and his music begins to mature.

"Cave Paintings" begins like the pieces on "Drones"... a pleasant loop, this time of what sounds like sped up cricket sounds, establishes a backdrop for a warm drone with shifting, resonant harmonics. Extended synth improvisations introduce themselves. This time, though, shimmering, golden sounds that could easily have originated from a rhodes piano rise in liquid arpeggiations compliment the chords. The song feels, at risk of waxing overly poetic, like light shining through honey. The mix is much more clear and three dimensional. Several minutes before the song ends, most of the drone drops out, leaving the sound environment strangely empty. Though it never becomes outright threatening, like some of the material on "Drones" and "Sunyata", by the end, this emptiness has given risen to new synth themes that are quite mournful and nostalgic. All in all, an amazing track.

The second track, "Hayagriva" is more spacious, less melodic, and feels very dry. The bassy drone from the previous track returns, but definitely feels a little less warm, a little less sympathetic. A, sparkling, crisp electronic buzz that would sound like power lines overhead if it didn't resonate in such a pretty major chord crackles quietly in the background. It brings to mind images of ruins in the open desert. The usual slow synth chords do eventually enter, but create little human feeling to sympathize with beyond a vague sense of anticipation. The movement of the piece is again reminiscent of clouds, but this time other sounds are present to remind the listener that they are on the ground, looking up. Near the end, it's as if the wind begins to pick up, and a longing, airy chord overwhelms the mix for another somber ending.

This disk also comes with "Sunyata (Emptiness)", an eerie, glassy red shimmer that was the highlight of its namesake album. Waves of bass swell through the track periodically, but never evenly enough to create a pulse. It's as good as any of the "Trances" or "Drones" tracks.

In conclusion, "Trances and Drones" is essential Robert Rich. Two solid early albums are combined with other great early material to form an even better collection. Each of these songs explores its own world within the spacy, vague confines of Rich's early droning, arrhythmic, amelodic style. "Seascape", "Cave Paintings" and "Hagagriva" are all among Rich's best work ever. Highly recommended to anyone open to the idea of ambient space music.

After this, move on to the rerelease of "Sunyata" to experience the 2 tracks not included - the rawest, most unrefined part of Rich's early years.

I have virtually all of the cd's by Robert Rich- Trances/Drones, Soma, Stalker, Humidity and countless others that time does not permit me to list. To put it as blunt as can be, the artist known as Double R to me is simply a genius. Every one of these classic pieces are second to none. A true Rich fan will collect the above mentioned titles and the others and he definitely is in the same breath as Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana, Jonn Serrie, and the rest.

It's hard to believe that Rich was only in his teens when he recorded these early, ambitious masterpieces of Eno/Schulze influenced ambient/space music! It's impossible to single any particular track out, but in this reviewer's opinion, "Sunyata" and "Wheel of Earth" are probably the most evocative and haunting. How he found the time to record and perfect this music while he was a student at Stanford U. is beyond me, but it's clear that these early albums are nothing short of groundbreaking and deserve my highest recommendation

I'm pretty new to the ambient music, but of all of the ones I've listened to so far this one is the best. It's spacey, ethereal and hypnotic, no heavy new "agey" beat which I don't like, when I listen to this kind of music I want to relax, not get up and do a tribal dance, which a lot of music listed as ambient seems to be about. I've found a few others that are similar by other artists, but as I said this is the best one I've found so far.