Perpetual: Somnium Continuum
Product ID: 11758970
The Sleep Concert has been one of the dominant threads in my musical journey through life. It marked my first solo concert ever, in January 1982, in the lounge of a Stanford University dormitory. It became a sort of trademark for me, even as I explored a range of dynamic music throughout my career. Occasionally I feel an urge to return to this slow-motion core of my creative heart, and occasionally the world comes back to remind me that I will always be connected to sonic explorations at the edges of perception, trance consciousness, dreams, altered states, communal ritual. I returned to making all-night music when the Unsound Festival invited me to perform a sleep concert in Krakow Poland, October 2013. This would be my first sleep concert in ten years. I decided to create new textural soundscapes to use in this performance, to reinvigorate the concept for a new generation, a new millennium. After spending at least six months developing long evolving textures for the performance in Krakow, I proceeded to hone the material into a new long-form work, a sequel to the 7-hour long Somnium from 2001. Technical note: The Blu-ray version of 'Perpetual' contains both the 8-hour 'Perpetual' and the 7-hour original 'Somnium.' Each is divided into three chapters, split at the most quiet moments in each piece, in order to keep file sizes under 4 Gb. The audio files are stereo 16 bit 48 kHz, using over 13 Gb of the disc for audio. The remaining 11 Gb holds highly compressed video-black, required for navigation through the disc. The download of 'Perpetual' available through CD Baby is divided into ~80 minute chunks (for technical reasons due to data-entry workflow) and uses CD-resolution (16 bit 44.1 kHz) files. These should segue into each other seamlessly on your computer, although a soft click might be audible depending on the software.
H**N
Amazing sound sculpture.
There is only one other piece of sound-sculpture that I know of that is as ambitious as 'Perpetual Somnium Continuum', Steve Roach's 'Bloodmoon Rising'. Both are serious works of sonic art.
R**Y
interesting concept and performance
Totally enjoyable. Why wait so long between Somnium and Perpetual? More sleep concerts please!
M**S
Nice expansion of the iconic Somnium sleep release
I have owned the original Somnium since it was released, and I give those tracks FIVE STARS as being among my favorite ambient tracks of all time: the louder beginning which gives way to ethereal ambience and nature sounds, ending in a morning cacophony that emerges gradually from the deep drones of sleep. It is really quite moving and functions as a story in its own right. For the new music on this collection (Perpetual) I am still hard-pressed to summarize, since there is so much of it and I've only been listening a couple of months. Overall, it is less "organic" feeling than the original Somnium release, while more richly layered and full sounding throughout. I find the Perpetual tracks less varied than Somnium, much like the sustained multi-note drones of Mathias Grassow and Alio Die. Overall it is a rich listening experience, one which I find more suited to background listening in the daytime.
M**N
Towering masterpiece of modern music composition
Can’t imagine why this isn’t a more widely-celebrated work. Beyond groundbreaking innovation, Somnium/Continuum offers an extraordinarily beautiful listening experience. Fifteen hours of masterclass ambient bliss. Perfect for before sunrise and late night listening. [December 2021: appears to be out of print. Can’t wait for this to be reissued so I can buy it for my friends. Here’s to hoping Mr. Rich is working on a third installment in this series.]
W**L
Perfect follow up to Somnium
I have owned Somnium since it came out years ago. For a while it was a nightly sleep-listening experience. So of course I jumped at the chance to get Perpetual as soon as it was ready.If I were to describe Somnium in a few words it would be that it has a very traditional ambient start, amazingly quiet and long middle, and then restlessness at the end as you are waking.Perpetual seems more active throughout to me. A milder start, but then the activity never gets as low as Somnium for the entire eight hours. For this reason it is best to listen to Perpetual during the day or VERY low volume while sleeping.I have had Somnium fairly high volume at times and it never has intruded on sleep. But Perpetual has a dark agitation that should be experienced differently.Kudos to Robert Rich for taking a unique idea and delivering two varied versions of this idea.
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