Tracing

Following early releases by Steve Roden and Roel Meelkop, the Non Visual Objects label maintains quality control with these two new albums. Chartier has been producing lower case soundworks for some years now, and while Tracing won’t exactly knock you off your feet -which is hardly the point – it’s a beautiful 40 minute drift that emanates from the speakers like a strange mist. Created initially as his contribution to a mooted duo project with William Basinski, the latter rightly declined to add any contribution to what he insisted was already a finished piece.
—The Wire, UK

I can honestly say that I’ve been listening to this CD pretty much every day on the train into work and as a musical companion for reading, watching citiscapes fly by or just daydreaming, it’s quite simply unsurpassed. A truly magical album… anyway, on with the description! Non Visual Objects is a label that I’ve read about in the past and found myself wanting to stock at Smallfish but without any success before. Here, however, is the most recent release from the one and only Richard Chartier (who really is being prolific at the moment!). His grasp of minimalism is truly sublime and this CD seems to share a similar ethos to the recently released ‘Retrieval’ CD on ERS. One track that builds imperceptibly throughout and uses amazingly beautiful drones and processed sounds to convey a true sense of isolation that’s got a fair degree of warmth to offer as well. Far from being soulless machine music, this is a personal CD that’s incredibly intimate sounding and really offers an unparalleled experience when listened to in the right environment (i.e. headphones or at home). Truly a gorgeous piece of work and as it comes with Non Visual Objects’ lovely package design and in a limited run of 300 it’s well worth snapping up before it disappears for good.. Recommended.
—Smallfish, UK

Tracing is minimalism with a purpose, in the strictest meaning of this abused term: an intimate procession of gaseous particles starts from silence to gradually penetrate our psyche, like a necessary guide helping through a hazy environment with a fog lamp. The orbital period of this impalpable shroud of frequencies is extremely slow, giving our body the chance to adapt to a new condition in which alertness and tension decrease inexorably until reaching the limit between conscious and subliminal. As it often happens to yours truly, the awesome radiance of these recurring icy daydreams is perfectly contextual in a cold, grey gloomy morning where the faint light coming from outside seems to decompose and refract very distant, afraid of disturbing the perfection of Chartier’s memorable piece, for sure one of his very best.
—Touching Extremes, Italy

Running these articles through the spell checker as I often do, I see that “elusive” is an adjective that pops up quite often in the electronica pages. Remind me to consult a thesaurus next time. But elusive is most definitely the word to describe the music of Richard Chartier, painter, composer and founder of the LINE label. There’s a fine essay on Chartier’s work by Will Montgomery in the lavish new book / DVD from Sound323, Blocks of Consciousness and the Unbroken Continuum (if you can find / afford a copy that is review coming next month in these pages to whet your appetite, all being well). Montgomery is right to point out the influence of Feldman (who “saw his work as reaching an accommodation between this unstructured ‘time canvas’ and the linear demands of musical time”), but Chartier’s music isn’t traditionally notated and not in the least concerned with recognizable (and often repeated) units of pitch / harmonic information. With its fondness for almost imperceptible changes of texture and colour, Tracing has more in common perhaps with the music of Eliane Radigue, an influence that’s perhaps more apparent in Chartier’s early works. Archival 1991 on Crouton – but one that seems to have resurfaced here. Unlike Radigue’s music, which benefits from being played back at relatively high volume over a good speaker system, Chartier describes his ideal listening conditions as “closed headphones -the kind that shut out the world -or an otherwise silent environment.” Radigue’s music -like Phill Niblock’s – takes shape and reveals its form by interacting with the architecture of the listening space itself, while Chartier’s often gives the impression it wants to withdraw from the world entirely. Introvert it might be, but it’s not inaccessible. This 41’36” span of superbly paced and immaculately mixed music is as good a place to start as any if you’re unfamiliar with Richard Chartier’s music.
—Paris transatlantic

Of course it’s just not the Merzbows of this world who seem to be producing endless streams of works. Richard Chartier, king of ambient glitch (a throne he shares with a few others, though), is perhaps the most active musicians in ambient glitch. Originally he send Tracing as a basic piece to William Basinski, as a starting point for a collaboration. But Basinski told ‘him there was not anything I could add that would not take away from the beauty that was already there’. I can’t agree, nobody can really, since it wasn’t made. But we can agree with Basinski though about the beauty being there. For Tracing is a gorgeous, forty some minute work of the best ambient glitch around. Whatever Chartier put into it (field recordings? feedback? the cat a sleep?) we don’t know, but we don’t care much either. The work has a beautiful flowing character, a large breathing hum, a hum that is very much alive, slowing filling the space you are in while listening (including, if you do that, with headphone, the space in your mind) to this with a warm blanket of sound. On the surface things may seem static, but underneath things crawl, insect like, alive and moving around… It’s simply a work of great beauty. One of Chartier’s best.
—Vital Weekly, Netherlands

Non Visual Objects has something of an impressive pedigree as far as releases go. Kicking off with a CD by sound artist Steve Roden, the aim of this particular imprint became very clear early on – to provide experimental works of electronic musical art with distinctive packaging and a varied, often challenging repertoire of artists.

Following that, NVO released works by Richard Garet, Dale Lloyd, Jos Smolders, Ubeboet, Roel Meelkop and label co-owner Heribert Friedl. Now, for the 5th release we are treated to an exceptionally beautiful piece of work by Line and 3particles head Richard Chartier who, by my calculations, is on absolutely top form at the moment.

Well known for his wonderfully difficult sound-works using microtones, fractured electronics and a minimally minimal style which borders on being barely perceptible at times, Chartier is an experimentalist with an incredibly finely tuned sense of space and form.

Tracing continues his recent (and hopefully ongoing) trend for producing incredibly deep and melancholy drone-based works. For other examples see Set Or Performance or Retrieval 1-5 . In my opinion, this style really suits him and brings a truly emotional side to his sound right to the fore whilst still challenging the listener and pushing towards the edges of the genre.

The piece starts off in a typical Chartier fashion with a long, tantalizingly slow build up which, initially at least, sits so far back in the mix that it’s more of a subconscious sound – a slowly evolving, rumbling bass drone layered under a deeply resonant and very atmospheric texture which fades in and out like the ebb and flow of the sea.

The piece continues in that vein throughout using subtle filtering and resonance to amazing effect… the droning sounds almost implying the feeling of wind blowing across stark landscapes… the feeling of being stranded, alone, in space with monolithic, impossibly large spacecraft drifting past you… utter desolation, yet with a surprising amount of warmth in the actual tones he’s used. Volumes change radically from time to time and whilst one moment you’re hardly aware of anything, the next it’s a mind-filling noise which is very moving indeed.

Then, 41 minutes later, you find yourself in another space and frame of mind having been treated to one of the most hypnotic soundscapes you’re liable to hear, wondering to yourself where those 41 minutes went… how they could have passed so quickly. That’s the beauty of it – you always want to go back to hear it again and in a similar way to John Hudak’s Room With Sky on Spekk, you get the feeling that’s exactly what the artist wanted. Chartier has created a pristine work here and, for me, is conceivably one of his most exquisite works to date. Bravo to both label and artist.
—remote_thoughts

Richard Chartier’s records are no stranger to theses pages; his rothko-swathed sonic pastiches are now their own cottage industry. surprisingly, Chartier continues to excavate brave new worlds from an inverted aural syntax that while championing reductionism nearly renders itself virtually moot – the stuff is so vaporous it’s barely there. tracing resembles the white formations trailing out of a skywriter’s engines, dissipating into the blue. methodical, varying in pitch and intensity, Chartier’s nuanced drone doesn’t so much demand patience as condone it, coaxing the listener actively engage with its muted windhowls and dusky scrim. a singel-colored canvas, yes, but whether placed as background or foreground, there’s nagging, persistent force at work that pulls you in. excellent.
—e/i magazine

Ein sehr langer, elegisch verwaschen schwer greifbar dronig textueller Track. Nicht ungewšhnlich dür Chartier, aber auch nicht besonders herausragend. Perfekt um bei Dokumentationen Ÿber den Himalaya den Sound auszuschalten und einfach nur eisige Weite zu sehen und zu hšren.
—De:bug, Germany

Sound and installation artist, founder of LINE label, Richard Chartier is infamous for his love of an extreme-minimal sound. Many of his recordings are so quiet, so sparse; you’d think your stereo system was on the fritz. Many times I’d listened to some of his previous records and though my speakers were unplugged. Simply put, there are barely any sounds there. Tracing is a piece that Chartier apparently had sent to another audio artist William Basinski as a starting point for a possible collaborative effort. Basinski refused to touch the piece as there was nothing that he could add to the beauty that was already present. Having said that, the 40 minute piece is a study in silence. A hollowed-out drone sound filters throughout the duration. The sound is that of a low-pitched, slow wind twirling in a huge cave, deep underground. The pitch of the drone changes slightly from beginning to end, while the speed remains constant. Tiny bits of glitches are heard underneath the drone a few times, though these don’t distract from the even flow of the piece. As is usual with Non Visual Objects label, the packaging retains its minimal quality, with a beautiful Chartier sketch on the cover. Haunting, mesmerising and non-descript in its layers of caressing beauty, Tracing sees Richard Chartier at his peak.
—Gaz-ete, Poland

Less is more, une fois n’est pas coutume : le label Non Visual Objects publie sa cinquime livraison, et son disque le plus minimal a ce jour. Interpretation of minimalism, pourtant, dit le credo du label : c’est qu’ici, tout est renversé, et le minimal ne saurait accepter plus sans que quelque chose lui soit retranché, ou accueillir moins sans que quelque chose a la minimalité précisément – soit en excs, produise un excs : en l’occurrence un excs d’attente, de vide en instance de plénitude, a la manire de la peinture a l’encre orientale : échange permanent entre le vide et le plein, suspension de l’encre entre deux eaux. C’est précisément ce qui a lieu ici, o le son court le long d’une ligne claire exactement équilibrée, exactement située entre le trop et le pas assez. Longue plage instru/mentale, Tracing évolue lentement, de nappes colorées en micro-touches granuleuses, de tourbillons a peine audibles en feulement prts a disparatre : une ambient ni évanescente ni vaporeuse, d’une précision au contraire sans faille, rigoureusement découpée dans la matire sonore, matire pleine a laquelle Richard Chartier s’est appliqué a retrancher autant que faire se pouvait. Ce geste d’évidement, d’épuration et d’asschement constitue ici la source de la musique : comme si le travail du musicien rejoignait la pratique de l’ascte, longue méditation en approche du zéro – une démarche aussi rigoureuse et exigeante qu’un sacerdoce. Rien n’aura eu lieu que la musique, ici. Démarche risquée tant elle va a contre-courant des tendances de la production actuelle, mais dont l’exigence, la pureté et la rigueur nous convainquent sans mal de sa valeur.
—Infratunes, France

Here, however, is the most recent release from the one and only Richard Chartier (who really is being prolific at the moment!). His grasp of minimalism is truly sublime and this CD seems to share a similar ethos to the recently released Retrieval CD on ERS. One track that builds imperceptibly throughout and uses amazingly beautiful drones and processed sounds to convey a true sense of isolation that’s got a fair degree of warmth to offer as well. Far from being soulless machine music, this is a personal CD that’s incredibly intimate sounding and really offers an unparalleled experience when listened to in the right environment (i.e. headphones or at home). Truly a gorgeous piece of work and as it comes with Non Visual Objects’ lovely package design and in a limited run of 300 it’s well worth snapping up before it disappears for good … Recommended.
—Smallfish, UK