In my public life, I have to endure every day having shrieking "soul" music or howling pop noise shoved in my face, no matter where I go, even at my beloved Starbucks. So it is with a vast sense of relief that I come home to ambient sound by masters such as Robert Rich, where quietness and contemplation are still cherished. You may recall my post earlier this year about Rich's piano album "Open Window." That same year, 2005, he also released a wondrous ambient album entitled "Echo of Small Things." This is inspired by his longtime friendship and collaboration with photographer David Agasi, whose moody black and white photos are featured in the album's graphic packaging.

Those who regard only Mozart and Bach and the classical genre (or any other established musical genre!) as "real" music will not care for this album, since it is not structured the way "real" music is. Rich's work here would be better described as "sound design," since it combines environmental sounds such as voices, footsteps, wind, water, thunder, or other seemingly random noises with long, drawn-out drones created by electronics or steel guitar. These are punctuated with pentatonic (in Rich's non-Western "just intonation" tuning) notes on synthesizers and chimes, adding a coherent musical tonality to the mix. The environmental sounds are intended to correspond with the intention of the photographer Agasi to portray "ordinary things" as poetic.

There is a highly personal element to the photographs, some of which are of a Japanese girl on a bed (he lives in Tokyo) including one partial nude. The eroticism of these photos is echoed by Rich's sensuous sound textures, languid and dreamy and sustained. It is a world away from the pounding beat of porno-pop eroticism. But Rich's interpretation of Agasi is not just about people and relationships. It is about spaces, both architectural and natural. Agasi photographs stairs, or ferns, or a leaf-drifted wet autumn sidewalk, and Rich conveys this with his slowly changing hovering sounds, almost melting into the background at times, with only tiny increments of bells or crickets to catch one's attention. Both artists have in mind that famous Japanese aesthetic, unknown in American culture, of mono no aware (pronounced moh-no no awah-ray) which is sometimes translated as "the pathos of things." It is, in this context, a look at those "small things" with a combination of wonder and melancholy, since they are all transient but beautiful nevertheless.

There are also elements of deeply nocturnal mystery and spooky weirdness, most evident in track 6, "Scent of Night Jasmine," and its following track, "Summer Thunder." This is where Rich takes a listener into a dreamlike, surrealistic world where his drones, flute notes, and environmental sounds are overlaid by percussion which never quite gets into any rhythm. It is one of Rich's most characteristic touches, to suggest at rhythm without really committing to it. In "Summer Thunder," the sound of distant thunder is combined with crickets and some very eerie soft synthesizer drones. You can just feel the breeze from the far-off storm lightly agitating the window curtains at 3 AM.

In the last two tracks, the night is over, with a sense of oncoming day and the sounds of birds and people waking. The last track, "Weightless Morning," evokes a pale and somber dawn, with sounds of drones and chimes fading into light. The album ends in the same serene but uneasy quiet in which it starts. This is not the kind of album you put on to soften up your work space; it resists being utilitarian "background music" like many ambient productions. This is a participatory experience, even without Agasi's photos, a sound environment which may bring you to visit your own memories and reflections, and fears.

An afterword to this review

I must add an extraneous but still serious critical comment to this otherwise splendid artistic collaboration. Agasi's photos in the album show his model with a lit cigarette in her hand, as well as an ashtray full of cigarette butts. His other photos on his website often show people smoking. Now I realize that in Japan, and among artists in general, cigarette smoking is something everyone does, and it's taken for granted. But as a nonsmoker and a strong adversary of this filthy and health-destroying habit, I never take it for granted, no matter how sexy a cigarette appears in the hands of a beautiful woman in a beautiful photograph. When I see a cigarette in a picture, I find it as jarring as if the model were holding a crack pipe or a syringe. Many readers will say I'm over-reacting and that I should just get over it, but I am hoping that somehow tobacco addiction will continue to recede into the realm of unacceptable behavior, rather than be promoted, however subtly, as part of the life of art and beauty.

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