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Temple of the Invisible finds Robert Rich at his most organic, eschewing the trappings of modernity or stylistic boundaries. Using only simple acoustic instruments, Rich has crafted a document from a distant time and place, a lost culture with musical underpinnings that reach from Java to North Africa, from Medieval Europe to the Tibetan Plateau. Rich uses the music of this unknown civilization as a platform to express an intensely personal quest.
Each piece documents part of a lost ritual, with mythical and spiritual components conveyed through a strangely familiar yet foreign musical language, as if unearthed from an ancient common ancestry.
Contributors include Sukhawat Ali Khan (son of the great Indian vocalist Salamat Ali Khan), Paul Hanson (from Bela Fleck & Flecktones, Wayne Shorter, Zenith Patrol), Percy Howard (from Meridiem, Bill Laswell), and noted solo artists Forrest Fang and Tom Heasley, adding dimension and power to this mysterious world out of time.
Instruments:
Robert Rich: prepared piano, mallet kalimba, flutes, percussion, zithers
Sukhawat Ali Khan: voice
Forrest Fang: baglama, gu zheng
Paul Hanson: bombard, bassoon
Tom Heasley: voice, conch
Percy Howard: voice
Includes unlimited streaming of Temple of the Invisible
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
Edits from an article by Derk Richardson for SF Gate:
Musical Archeology
.... Robert Rich's Temple of the Invisible is harder to pin down. Rich's Web site describes the music as "a document from a distant time and place, a lost culture with musical underpinnings that reach from Java to North Africa, from Medieval Europe to the Tibetan Plateau," with each of the album's seven pieces further documenting "part of a lost ritual, with mythical and spiritual components conveyed through a strangely familiar yet foreign musical language, as if unearthed from an ancient common ancestry."
Playing flutes, zither, prepared piano, mallet kalimba and a variety of percussion, Rich recruited a mixed musical family of friends to join him on his journey: Sukhawat Ali Khan contributes impassioned Indian vocals; widely traveled virtuoso Paul Hanson plays bassoon and bombard (an obscure oboe-like reed); Forrest Fang plugs the bouzouki-like baglama and the ancient Chinese zither known as the gu zheng; Tom Heasley, known for his ambient tuba work, adds voice and conch shell; and Percy Howard, of Meridiem fame, deepens the textures with his post-operatic vocals. As with every Rich production, the attention to sonic detail gives new meaning to obsessiveness. Few studio technicians can match Rich's mastery of sound placement and the complex relationships between aural foreground and background, while keeping the focus on musical content. Temple of the Invisible sounds like nothing -- and a little bit of everything -- you've heard before.
"I've been interested in musical archeology for some time," Rich explained in a recent e-mail exchange, "often ponder what the music would have sounded like in vanished cultures. It makes me aware of the fragility of our own musical heritage. ... Also I have long loved the music of Harry Partch, which somehow invents a culture of its own.
"For years now I have been playing around with trying to assemble a small ensemble to invent music from pre-Hellenic cultures," he continues, "perhaps even pre-Sumerian Akkadian. Not exactly an archaeological forgery, it would be more like a question posed to history, projecting a 'possible' language into the past."
The project, Rich explained, would be called "Rites of the Bronze Age." But as it would take too long to realize, he scaled back to "trying to make a very personal music from my own vocabulary, which nevertheless sounds like it came from somewhere else ... By including the contributions of other musicians with mastery in some different styles, especially Sukhawat Ali Khan and Forrest Fang, I was able to pull the sound a bit away from my own personal vocabulary and give it a taste of authenticity."
Rich chose the instruments by imagining the sounds of his invented culture, consciously avoiding "some instruments that have too much of a specific cultural reference, or have become clichéd by recent 'world music' overuse, such as didgeridoo or gamelan." The players came individually to his studio in Mountain View and improvised on the tracks initially laid down by Rich, who then edited it all together, giving the resultant pieces titles from a made-up language, such as "Etranon," "Pa Tanak," "Fasanina" and "Lan Tiku."
"I have a vague libretto in my head," the composer/producer admits, "but I would rather leave it hidden, to allow other people to imagine their own stories."
credits
released May 1, 2003
Contributors:
Robert Rich - percussion, flutes, zithers
Sukhawat Ali Khan - voice
Forrest Fang - baglama, gu zheng
Paul Hanson - bombard, bassoon
Tom Heasley - voice, conch
Percy Howard - voice
Robert Rich has helped define ambient and electronic music, with over 50 albums across five decades. Rich began building his
own analog modular synthesizers in 1976, when he was 13, and later studied computer music at Stanford's CCRMA while researching lucid dreaming. Rich performs and lectures worldwide. His all-night Sleep Concerts have become legendary....more
supported by 22 fans who also own “Temple of the Invisible”
Stunning, Hypnotic, Immersive - I haven't even played the 2nd track yet as I can't stop looping the first - I don't want it to end! Been a lifelong fan & this really is jaw dropping... 10/10 Mat Mckenzie
supported by 21 fans who also own “Temple of the Invisible”
We have the 'Rest Of Life' to think whole truths morally wrong... no amount of gronce will shonky honesty up.. when dissin to depleted lobotomies is not barked back at too smugly.. cones, jugs & pharmacies
"And all the drama got me stressin' like I'm hopeless, I can't cope..
Me and the homies smokin' roaches, 'cause we broke" - 2PAC skitzo-productions
A soothing, yet stimulating, set of ambient-adjacent electronic tracks influenced by ’80s Japanese new age music and euclidian music theory. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 6, 2022
supported by 19 fans who also own “Temple of the Invisible”
This album will grow on you. Listen in headphones or earbuds. It will blow your mind. Steve has so many amazing textures and dimensions on this release. It's hard to pick a favorite track. Probably in his top 5, if there is such a thing. 53Guitarman