With Continue Richard Chartier presents four minimalist compositions with a focus on deep drones and apparent silences. The music is subtle, delicate and at moments fragile. Full, with details, like delicate patterns that unfold like ripples on water.
—shinybeast.nl
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Y’know, I can understand Richard’s point: how do you know whether a piece of music is “finished”? Personally, I fuss over a few minutes of my own music for a year or longer… change it and change it and edit and trim off bits and fuss some more… until some outside force tells me: hey, you’re done, give me that master so that I can put the thing out. And then I perseverate about whether it was done enough. Argh! Richard is more prolific than I am, but he seems to have a similar issue. In the press materials for “Continue”, he admits his own consternation when he isn’t sure whether a piece is done or why he can’t quite articulate what makes him go back into the music to continue working on it. He then offers the metaphor that humans are like artworks: always unfinished, perpetually shifting… and sure, I’ll buy that. Though we do have an ending, eventually. Accepting our inevitable incompletion makes the completion of an artwork less important… or rather, it makes communication via art more urgent than refining it. Why worry whether it’s done? It’s not done! Maybe “done” is an impossible ideal. But we can enjoy possibly-unfinished art in that context, knowing that every sound might be subject to revision later.
And so, here we are at “Continue”, RC’s first physical solo album under his own name since 2017. It’s not a huge departure from his previous recent-ish music; softly undulating drone built from a seemingly-limited set of sonic elements. “Continue” is an album in four parts, each one describing an atmosphere of under-stated unease. Chartier’s sound palette here seems to be drawn from shades of powerfully gelatinous sub-bass and inner-ear-worrying soft flutter with scratches of bodiless anxiety tugging at the periphery. The first piece jumps right in with a duet for tinnitus and tectonic movement… softly ripping high tones at the upper edges accompanied by commanding bass that slides below. It’s not static, though it might appear to be at first… headphones and full attention are better for revealing the elements that glide in and out with liquid ease. At points, I thought I could hear irregular rhythm… maybe? At about halfway in, I was reminded of classic “Heresy”-era Lustmord, with tons that (for me, anyway) brought to mind an distant (but oncoming) storm and bracing gusts of frozen wind. The second piece further develops that dark-ambient mood, but goes even darker… ten minutes of subterranean rumble with heavy weather on the surface. The third piece is lighter than what came before, at least for a few minutes… a passage of nimble stereo action with a hint of melody, restrained and tense… before Chartier brings in what sounds like a choir! I’m sure it’s not actually a choir, but the passage hits with voice-like intoning, some serious gravity for a dramatic climax… followed by a hushed coda to drop the listener back on Earth. The fourth and final track is a sustained sub-bass wallop, five minutes of making your speaker-cones beg for mercy and then a gentle drift into open-air and oceanic sine-tone ebb. Could “Continue” go through additional revisions? Maybe! Anything could be revised and revised ad infinitum. But heck, it sure sounds finished to me.
—Vital Weekly
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Ameerika helikunstnik-eksperimentaator näikse olevat inspireeritud pigem helide kõrvalekalletest kui korralikust helikvaliteedist. Aga…jutt käib helist kui algmaterjalist, mitte kui kompositsioonilisest ülesehitusest. Ei ole ta ei esimene ega viimane artist, kes helidele on veaprintsiibil või selle kõige minimaalsemat alget aluseks võttes lähenenud (meenuvad Frank Bretschneider ja Kaffe Matthews). Teiseks loob Chartier neist helidest põnevad kompositsioonid – võttes eelduseks helide dünaamika, nihete, arenguskeemide olemasolu. Kolmandaks – eirates eeldust, et muusika on inimolendit mõjutav aktiivne kunstimeedium ja inimene selle juures jääb passiivseks – kasutab Chartier nn madala läve kuulamise taktikat/low level listening/, et kuulaja peaks aktiivselt kaasa lööma, et asjast mingisugust sotti saada. Siinkirjutaja pidi haarama vastutahtsi kõrvaklapid, et saada kuuljaks ja isoleerida segavad helid. Ning kuulma hakkasin paljut ja huvitavat, detailset ja üldisemat – nii vaimses plaanis, fantaasiates kui füüsiliste vibratsioonide kaudu. Midagi rappub nii mentaalselt kui füüsiliselt, lisaks kuuldavale on kuuldamatut ja olematut (kuulmismoonutused – vt. Maryanne Amacher). “Rahu ainult rahu!”, karjus Karlsson ja pani Moving Furniture plaadifirmalt ostetud taiese maksimaalse helitugevusega mängima, et kuulda minimaalset.
—agier.blogspot.com
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Richard Chartier is a composer, sound artist and graphic designer. Musically he is – in short – specialized in digital minimal music and reductionism, in such a way that the music seems to arise from silence, but not so far that only a few sparse notes can be heard. There is always something happening in the music of the American. Over the years he has built up a fairly extensive discography with various national and international labels.
The adage “play loud” does not apply to Chartier’s music. His music thrives at low volumes, where you have to keep your ears open to hear every nuance of what this musician is offering you. It’s almost like tracking down a rare organism that moves on the ground or the bottom of the ocean. It is a solitary activity; the magic is gone as soon as the auditory study is disturbed by the presence of others or by a sound that does not belong in the music. Listening with headphones is strongly recommended.
The music on Continue is about completion. Are the works finished? Are they ever finished? Who decides whether they are finished? The composer? The listener? These are questions that remain open and answers are not necessary to enjoy the music. Chartier does not make it easy for you as a listener by presenting his music at a low volume; you have to turn the volume knob very far if you want to experience the music at a loud volume. That is not the intention either: concentration is required to appreciate the music. The listener’s interpretation also seems to be an important part of Chartier’s music.
The album has four pieces, of which “Continue 1” with a duration of nineteen minutes is by far the longest. Chartier does not so much create a musical landscape as a sequence of digital sounds, without context and without main moments. Fast or slow pulsing sounds and tight and dark drones come to you in a sequence that has a certain logic. It is best to take the sounds until you are in the dark or with your eyes closed. It is purely the sounds and their arrangement that should do the job. However, it is not a sequence of fragments; the music moves organically, especially in the first piece. Of course images appear in the mind of the listener, which is inevitable, but the music does not seem to provide any visual stimulus and even wants to eliminate the visual aspect as much as possible.
The music on Continue is electronic and stripped of emotions. Yet as a listener you can certainly experience emotions when listening to the sounds that are presented. There is no constant timbre, it changes all the time and that fact alone ensures that different associations can be made by the listener. In this way, threat, darkness and melancholy can be experienced, separately or at the same time. The question is whether those associations are actually present in the music or only concern the listener’s interpretation.
The four works differ considerably. “Continue 2”, for example, is a dark work in which deep sounds resound strongly, alternated with moving and soft electronic sounds in which there seems to be room for coincidence. In “Continue 3” it’s more about subtle sounds, light sounds that tap or move from left to right through your head. Further on, they are replaced by a pulsating drone and claustrophobic electronic sounds. In the last piece, very low and very high frequencies are combined. The ears are thereby stimulated and not in a listening-friendly way. Yet it is fascinating to hear how Chartier plays with the extreme frequencies and comes to an exciting piece of music, however minimal.
Consider what is above as an attempt at interpretation and no more than that. There is more going on in the music and in the mind of the listener than can be described. Moreover, it is best to experience the music on Continue without prejudice, without expectations. The abstract and soft sound world of Chartier invites concentrated listening and those who do so await an extraordinary and brain-stimulating listening experience.
—opduvel.com
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La musique minimaliste extrême du Californien Richard Chartier consiste à déjouer constamment les frontières de la composition...
Le minimalisme du Californien Richard Chartier, fidèle d’ailleurs aux principes d’origine du genre de ce type de créations (appelées microsound réductionniste), consiste à déjouer constamment les frontières de la composition comme si cette dernière était marquée, de l’intérieur, par une indétermination constitutive qui dissout les seuils. Un procédé qui rend paradoxalement les compositions plus proches du rythme de la vie et du quotidien, capables de nous envelopper et de nous transformer sans même nous avertir. D’où, peut-être, ce titre Continue, qui se déploie en quatre parties, travaillant son auditeur par une tension faible pourtant bien présente que Chartier n’hésite pas à prolonger sur la durée, provoquant des lignes ténues, des moments d’hésitation et des vagues ondoyantes, formant subtilement l’ossature de ses compositions. Ce qui en ressort ce sont des formes ouvertes et organiques, qui semblent épouser le mouvement lent et changeant de la nature derrière lequel le musicien américain semble apparaître et disparaître en continu, comme le fantôme de sa propre œuvre.
—pinkushion.com
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Richard Chartier vergelijkt zijn werk aan ‘Continue’ met de zon, die onophoudelijk in beweging is, maar vanaf de aarde gezien onbeweeglijk lijkt. De vorm van het hemellichaam is nooit af, zegt hij. Hoewel de muziek op dit album niet de verpletterende energie van de zon heeft, hoor je er wel de constante flux in die het oppervlak ervan kenmerkt. De kolkende wervelingen, de rivieren vol nuances van goud. Maar ook zijn positie, volstrekt alleen in zijn hegemonie in dit deel van het heelal. Het loont om deze cd onder een koptelefoon tot je te nemen. Je zult niet ten onder gaan aan klankenobesitas. Chartier heeft voldoende ruimte in de muziek gecreëerd. Intens, maar luchtig.
—gonzocircus.com
