crou024: Richard Chartier: Archival 1991 CD

CROUTON NO.24
RICHARD CHARTIER
“ARCHIVAL 1991″
CD

Out of print.

Richard Chartier is a designer, an artist, and perhaps, a neat freak. Throughout his recent work,Chartier has continued to present sound as design - clean, simple design, implying colors and direct lines and shapes; a spotless, modern room; a series of colored screens. His release on Crouton predates this taste, when things were a bit more complex, a bit more intense. And as his recent work sucks the listener into white space, Archival1991 takes you straight into a black hole, in the most comfortable way imaginable. This is a different kind of clean simplicity. The work is beautiful, stunning, and most of all, complexly powerful. The recording is based on two compositions from 1991, using analog and digital synthesizers. In 2003, these original pieces were used as source material for this new work, resulting in an extremely intriguing revisit, and aesthetically true to much of his work from the same period.

Reviews:

“This self-contained, highly mediated headspace effectively removes the listener from the context of the real, and allows Charter free access to move tiny plastic sounds around in an ultra quiet form of minimalism. Despite (or possibly because of) these contraints, he often succeeds in his poetry of the micro-fragment and Archival 1991 also carries an aestehtic of control in a revisitation of hes earlier industrially tinged dronescapes.” - The Wire

“Magnificent. This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard. Well lets just say it made a big impression. A truly ear opening piece which has certainly given me an experience I all too rarely discover through music these days. “ - Phosphor Magazine

“The piece works through many ebbs and flows. It begins subtly, sounding not unlike the angry sea as heard through a conch shell. Throughout, I’m reminded of the open sound of rushing wind or large bodies of water. A few minutes later, I realize the sound has become more intense, as if nearer the heart of a turbulent current. Furthermore, there are passing washes of bass, guttural in their pitch, but as smooth as a glacier. These washes become more pronounced (and deeper) as the piece reaches its midway point, and as such, the surrounding wind-like sounds retreat to the upper registers. Over time, the winds mostly subside, and the bass seems more focused– though that could be that I’ve become much more used to its patterns over the last half hour. Archival 1991 ends as these bass movements spiral into nothingness. If this is emptiness, it is intimidating only in that we are left to our own devices to find a happy ending, or even recognizably “human” signposts along the way. However, it’s an impressive emptiness from an interesting composer.” - Pitchfork

“The result is a surprisingly complex and emotionally charged track, modelled around one very rich, though quite unsettling drone. It’s very hard to believe that such a multi-faceted, truly cavernous sound came from synths alone.” - Brainwashed