“This DVD proves the depths of EM, this time purely ambient, perfectly illustrating the astonishing beauties of the digital art”
Chapter 1 Earth 11:00
Chapter 2 Mythos 14:00
Chapter 3 Platonic 12:00
Chapter 4 The Convolution 15:00
Glint in Her Eyes
Chapter 5 Deconstructions 11:00
Chapter 6 Passages 9:00
Chapter 7 Terra Meta 11:00
Chapter 8 Elegy 9:00
(DVD 93:00)
(CD/DDL 66:24) (V.F.)
(Ambient, Soundscapes)
There are two ways to describe ATLAS DEI! The 13-track album which comes from the soundtrack of Daniel Colvin's movie and Colvin's movie itself which projects incredible images, and the word is weak, on the lavishly ambient and meditative music of Robert Rich.
But there is more! ATLAS DEI is what electronic music, ambient or sequenced, should be; either be the witness of a visual art without borders where the imagination is unlimited, like the sublime images of Daniel Colvin. The symbiosis is unique, if not perfect. The images merge into themselves, merging with slow music and with muffled vague impulses that leave a sound imprint that 3D visual effects roll up with a poetic juxtaposition. Whether we like ambient music or not, which is my case, we are not indifferent to Colvin's digital and artistic beauties. But there are rythms, they are soft if not ambient. There are images that excite the music with weighted intuitive thrusts. A bit like the creation, what the genesis could have been. The visual effect is as striking as the music can be effective. Title after title, the surprise is total as the creativity is high level. On a relaxing music as possible, the magic operates before our eyes. The images are of a beauty from beyond the world and blend into the music like a desire express itself. Slowly, with a cotton-softness directed by a music with virtues that only tranquility can suggest. This is a superb journey to the confines of a reinvented cosmos, of solved and unsolvable mysteries, in an endless musical loop. There are many good times and the frontiers of the unimaginable are all visited. Whether from the arid lands of Nevada to the exploded stars of a molten cosmos, Daniel Colvin composes an unreal world in pastel colors that Robert Rich responds to with music of a serenely apocalyptic movements. An ideal music for this superb visual creativity. Rich's music embraces all facets of Colvin's imagination. The rhythms are fluid and the sequences swirling on movements of an ambient calm. For the occasion, the American synthesist has retouched some of his pieces and composed others. Offering a variety in tones that subtly styles the curly movements of visual art.
ATLAS DEI is a DVD which proves the depths of electronic music, this time purely ambient, perfectly illustrating the astonishing beauties of digital art. Two forms of art shunned by purists but which is way above what they can write. To get without fail! And for the music and for the visual aspect. The DVD is discontinued and Robert Rich offers the music on CD and in downloadable format on his Bandcamp site.
Sylvain Lupari (October 20th, 2007) ****½*
Available at Robert Rich Bandcamp