Robert Rich – Ylang

3 reviews for Robert Rich – Ylang

1. 

   Richard Grtler / Bratislava, Slovakia – 2022-11-22

   To make it clear, reviewing Robert Rich is a quite big honor for me, because it was his legendary Trances/Drones” 2CD that was a turning point for me around 1995 during my musical explorations. Maestro Robert Rich returned with “Ylang” in February of 2010

2. 

   Sylvain Lupari / Guts Of Darkness – 2022-11-22

   A tree from the Philippines, Ylang-Ylang produces an essential oil used essentially for perfumes. Its also the title of Robert Rich‘s 1st solo since Illumination (2007). This last opus of the American multi – instrumentalism is also perfumed of an equatorial and tropical smell with a multiethnic clan approach where fragrances of a world as Amerindian as Asian border a dreamlike approach very near the Tibetans and Buddhisms spiritualities. With Ylang, Robert Rich proposes a cerebral journey in the heart of the South-East Asia forests on tribal structures of an unrecognized and charming world, where aboriginal tribal percussions shape of enigmatic lascivious and latent rhythms on breaths of an omnipresent flute and of angelic vocals.

   A fine rain, delicate arpeggios of a forgotten piano and a solitary flute introduce Ambergris first chords. The tempo falls. Weary, it bends its spine in front of a spectral guitar and a tearful synth strata which encircle this musical firmament from where escapes multitude of notes on lascivious percussions, molding a mi sensual and mi ghostly middle rhythm, quite as on Tamarack, although this last one is more accessible and mesmerizing with its Lap Steel Guitar whose waves float such of wandering specters. The rhythms on Ylang are very subtle. Ultimately we could think that the album is more atonal than cadenced, except that tempos are always present and draw very ambivalent rhythmic architecture.
   Translucent and Verbena are perfect examples. The tempo is shaping out of strange Amerindian tribal incantations and is always latent. Without ever exploding or progressing excessively, they soak in a rich sound atmosphere and are of use as assizes to very poetic and dreamlike musical structures where hands percussions, flutes, ethereal voices and synth to slightly nervous layers dress a heterogeneous and spiritual musical world. On Ylang Robert Rich renew with fragrance of his fluty musical world. The flute is the key element of Attar and Kalyani intros where slamming percussions and jazzy bass draw a slow morphic tempo. Two beautiful enigmatic music pieces because of their crossings between a Tibetan mystic world which go alongside a slow and sensual jazz structure, they waddle languishingly on good aboriginal percussions and a sound flora very rich in tribe variations.
   Vetiver is the title that gets the closer to Robert Rich‘s desert universe (as well as Tamarack). Rich percussions to deviants structures and hybrid striking, Vetiver revolves in an arid world. A great track which takes all its dimension and impact with a good pair of earphones.
   With its progressive tempo, which shakes itself under a flute to Amerindian scents, Charukesi looks like a slow Indian procession. A track without precise rhythm which draws its energy via Robert Rich‘s frenzied flute. Languishing, plaintive and melancholic, First Rain encloses this soft tribal musical epic with violins orchestrations that melt indifference. Still there, the rhythm is indecisive, navigating on a xylophoned sea and rich violin strata which encircle a discreet plaintive synth and notes of a solitary piano.

   Ylang is as much beautiful as the unknown can be appealing. Towards its 9 tracks, Robert Rich succeeds in weaving a musical structure of a surprising beauty. But as an obscure beauty from the jungle, Ylang needs to be tame. Because if titles as Ambergris, Vetiver and Tamarack will join the delights of Rich fans, the other ones need for a rediscovery of the surprising musical universe, always very rich, from Robert Rich.
   Me I liked discovering these strange and bewitching rhythms, which don’t know if they dance or if they sink, in an eclectic, poetic and often dreamlike sound universe which is the fruit of Robert Rich‘s fertile imagination.

   2010. Sylvain Lupari / Guts Of Darkness

3. 

   John Diliberto – 2022-11-22

   The ylang ylang is a flowering tree from South Asia, and it provides the name for Robert Rich‘s latest album, Ylang. Appropriately Robert Rich goes back to some of his roots but also expands them into new branches. You can hear many of Rich‘s influences including psychedelic rock, German space music, Brian Eno ambiences and global trances. He got into electronic music on the heels of minimalism and especially the looping cycles of Terry Riley. That element emerges on Ylang as well as that of post-minimalist and Fourth World music creator Jon Hassell. The album abounds with murky, trancey percussion grooves and long undulating melodies that owe a debt to Hassell.

   In many ways, Ylang picks up on the intoxicating melodies and rhythms of his 1990s albums, Propagation and Seven Veils. You can hear the sinewy flute melodies, the throbbing hand drum rhythms, and one of Rich‘s signature sounds, the lap steel guitar. He doesn’t play the lap steel with aloha Hawaiian sweetness or country and western twang. Instead, it’s a siren cry, like Jimi Hendrix sent into infinite sustain on tracks like Ambergris.”
   With his electronic processing and analog synthesizers