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TO 124CD
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For over a quarter of a century, sound artist and composer Richard Chartier has interrogated an ever-deepening thread of minimalist sound that meshes questions of stasis, pulse and timbre. The result of this work is some of the most quietly intense compositions of this century. His is a music of subtle variation, unwavering concentration, and also patience. This five-part work created between 2020 and 2022 is dedicated to his friend and fellow sound artist Steve Roden. Mastered by Denis Blackham. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft.
"I first became friends with Steve Roden (and later his wife, Sari) back in 1998 when my first album direct.incidental.consequential was released. He was one of the first group of artists to whom I sent the album. Almost instantly he had been there on the other side of the phone (or email) and ever since. His way of listening and attention to details (no matter how small) was inspirational -- the clarity and complexity of his understated and only seemingly simple compositions, engaging... I worked on the compositions included on this album as Steve gradually slipped away from communication. He was not in my life like he had been before. During this time, it became apparent that these pieces were for Steve. A reflection of his ability to find beauty in the most minute details. Even when finally reviewing the final masters after his passing, I tried to think about how Steve would listen. What would Steve hear in the details? His effect on this album is strong... the accumulation of influence and inspiration. This album feels organic and warm and was developed during a time when his absence in my life increased." --Richard Chartier, February 2024
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RM 4146CD
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For over two decades, Richard Chartier has interrogated an ever-deepening thread of minimalist sonics that forge together questions of stasis, pulse and timbre. The results of this work are some of the most quietly intense compositions of this century. His is a music of subtle variation, unwavering concentration and also patience. At his 50th year, Chartier's focus continues to deepen and Interreferences is easily his most resolved work in that it brings together his appreciation for pulsing low energy matched against a restrained upper frequency detail. It is a work of perceptual contrast, but sonic accumulation.
A note from Richard Chartier: "I find myself at the collision of an inflection point and more over a reflection point. 50 years on this planet. I still find it difficult to write about my work. This is not because I cannot, but because I want the listener to approach my compositions of sound as such. Focus on the sensorial nature rather than an explicit narrative or reasoning. I do not see my work as abstraction but rather purely abstract. I chose sound as my medium after many years as a painter. I slowly came to conclusion that I no longer understood how to communicate sensation via a pigmented surface. The visual language I was using had become foreign to me. Sound allowed me a language that was wordless, open, moving, shapeless yet full of forms, connections, and progressions. It raised questions though and these are still part of what I struggle with in the ways I chose to create and then speak of my work why these sounds? what is the attraction to these sounds? how did I arrive at these compositions and their placements? The pieces exist then as less of a statement, more of a question, but a question that will be different for each listener. For me, listening to them over and over, they will take another form as time passes. They evolve. For now, though, they are in limbo on a piece of plastic or a series of lines of data Often i am puzzled by how other artists create their work, how they come to decide arrangements, sequences of sounds or just the sounds themselves. That is the magic of music."
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ASH 12-3CD
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In 2000, The Wire wrote of Richard Chartier's work: "it's worth stretching the ears in search of Chartier's sequences of exquisitely sculpted sonic events, as gorgeous detail bodies forth out of the shadows," the same holds true today. Formed over the course of five years, Removed was a process of removal/erasure. Only trace elements appear from what was. Their interactions merely a ghost of a composition -- subtle echoes across the sound spectrum. A glacially paced progression of discreet relational sonic events and flows. Inspired in part by the rigorous line drawings of American visual artist Linn Meyers, whose 2011 untitled drawing graces the cover, Removed draws the listener in to follow patterns. Meyers often creates large scale on-site works that transform a space into durational installations of seemingly endless lines. Seen from a distance these lines appear as almost natural ripples in a wall surface, but deeper, upon closer inspection, the delicate echoes and fluctuations of the artist's hand arise from the density of details. Chartier's precise sound compositions work in a similar manner. Austere and shimmering, the two compositions on Removed beg for careful listening on headphones. Or let these two compositions play quietly amplified across your space. Either way, a physically captivating dimensional experience. Removed is a continuing reflection on major aesthetic elements of Chartier's artistic language as it has evolved through the years. This is Chartier's first new solo studio album since 2013's field recording exploration, Interior Field, and 2012's purely digital Recurrence, both released on Line. Richard Chartier is a Los Angeles based artist and is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist sound known as both "microsound" and Neo-Modernist.
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LINE 062CD
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"Interior Field is a new stereo variation of a multi-channel sound work created from field recordings of a variety of small and large spaces from around the world. This work was originally presented at Civilian Art Projects in Washington, DC in 2012. Through his compositional practice, Chartier utilizes the unique physicality of these environments to create a newly defined acoustic space. Interior Field is a transposition of location, focus, and experience itself. A significant element of 'Interior Field (Part 2)' comes from binaural recordings at the McMillan Sand Filtration Site in Washington, DC. This unique historical site, built in 1905, is currently slated for almost complete demolition and redevelopment. Chartier was given special access to record at this site during a major rainstorm."
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LINE 059CD
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"In 2011, Chartier began a series of new works, Recurrence, which revisits the Series' elements and reworks them into entirely new compositions. Drawn to the original sounds Chartier felt that they could be re-composed. The form they have taken contains isolated and discreet events strewn across the sound field, creating a strange landscape and altered sense of space. A full studio version of 'Recurrence (Series)' is accompanied on this release with 'Recurrence (Room/Crosstones),' an exploration of room tones and other low frequency wave recordings. The Recurrence works are a continuing reflection on the major aesthetic elements of Chartier's artistic language as it has evolved through the years."
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LINE 049CD
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"In 2010, sound artist Richard Chartier was awarded a Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellowship to explore the National Museum of American History's collection of 19th Century acoustic apparatus for scientific demonstration. Chartier focused on the works of the German physicist Rudolf Koenig, including the Grand Tonometer (c. 1870-1875). This beautiful and precise set of 692 tuning forks expresses the frequency range 520 v.s (vibration simple) (260 hz) to 8192 v.s. (4096 hz). The pitches of the forks extend over four octaves, affording a perfect means for testing, by enumeration of the beats, the number of vibrations producing any given note. The Grand Tonometer is the only instrument of its kind in existence. During his Fellowship, Chartier individually recorded each of these unique instrument's existing tuning forks as well as many other instruments, devices, and their tonal interactions. Rudolph Koenig considered the Grand Tonometer and his other creations to be purely scientific instruments. His precise workmanship extended the Grand Tonometer's range to frequencies across the field of human perception, thus allowing the listener a chance to witness the nature of sound itself. Chartier's own compositions juxtapose soft and hushed, almost imperceptible, fragments with high and low frequencies, bursts, and static in an asymptotic process that cuts away from and deepens the nature of sound, finally achieving compositional focus in the spaces between them. Chartier was particularly drawn to the Grand Tonometer, feeling a distinct connection to Koenig's approach to sound, and to his aim of a new, or enhanced, way of listening."
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LINE 035CD
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"Line is proud to release this collection of recordings from numerous international compilations from 2002-2005. This collection is a wide range of sound works from the ultra-minimal whispers of 'Composition09.01' to the subtle harmonics and musicality of 'How Things Change' to the loud violent distortion of 'Tempt' (a piece only performed a handful of times for noisy spaces -- for example, this one was in attempt to drown out Akufen's set filtering from an adjoining area). Many of these original compilations are out of print or hard to find editions and 'Untitled' makes its debut on CD from its original vinyl appearance. 'Specification.Eleven' and 'Specification.Fourteen' are both part of the continuing collaborative works with Taylor Deupree. This CD serves as a follow-up to 2002's Other Materials."
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EDRM 409CD
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"Richard Chartier's sound installation and recorded pieces evoke a state of aural awareness. Working with a variety of minimal structures and refined sound sources, Chartier has been responsible for some of the most austere audio works of recent years. Aesthetically refined and creatively provocative, much of his work has focused on the edges of perception, both in frequency range and amplitude. On Current, his latest work to be released in conjunction with his upcoming performances in Australia and Japan later this year, Chartier offers a multilayered sound field. Shimmering high tones filter amid a clouded layer of dense audio mist -- across the 20 minutes, he creates a potent journey through crisp yet warm sound textures, metered pulses and spacious stereo field. The piece is thematically linked to the idea of travel by airplane -- the disassociation of time and location -- air currents above and the oceanic currents below."
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3" CD
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FALLT 14.0020
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"Typically for Chartier 'typeof' is an exercise in extreme restraint. Few artists use the space between sound -- the negative space of audio -- quite as effectively and as courageously as Chartier. Track one in particular -- all the tracks are untitled -- consists of fewer than six seconds of the most discreet of audio events suspended within a 54 second sound-space. Allowing the number of events to build over the course of the release, Chartier builds the most delicate of structures which generously rewards repeated listening."
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TOC 013
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"Decisive Forms is a very subtle, abstract work of great detail, a perfect object for contemplation that requires the listener's full attention. I find it extremely captivating to follow as it unfolds over time, to adapt my breathing to its slow pulse, and to be completely absorbed by the act of perception itself without thinking in form of interior comments, descriptions, or associations. Decisive Forms is another step forward Richard is taking from his fine work 'series' that has just received one of the twelve Honorable Mentions of Prix Ars Electronica 2001. I will not try to further describe Decisive Forms, but rather encourage you to go ahead and experience it yourself -- the attention it requires is generously rewarded." --Bernhard Günter, May 2001
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