Thompson, Robert Scott

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 1995
On this CD Robert Scott Thompson again explores the musical possibilities offered by the computer, structured as "simulacra of chamber and orchestral music" (RST). Track #3, in particular, is a major work of percussion, woodwind and synthetic timbres, offering a journey both atonal and semi-tonal, unlike anything I've heard. The whole CD is a wonderful exploration of sound, and while my personal favourite remains track #2, where the richness of the computer is particularly intriguing, the whole CD is yet another marvelous example of the genius that is Robert Scott Thompson.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 2005
Ambient soundscapes with subtle brooding shades and gentle pianos. Still Point feels almost orchestral at times, empty and drifting at others. Melodic pads, dissonant ripples and dense currents of sound mingle with plucked tones and deep, deep drones. Processed pianos and chimes present a simple harmonic foreground bringing light to clouds that occasionally harbour ethereal voices hidden somewhere within; metallic clangs and bell trees along with noises that resemble huge plucked springs stir the mix bringing variation to an album that constantly changes and alters its path. Serene, drifting sonic densities that are mostly shadowy and overcast - yet often backlit or silvered at the edges. Still Point often has a plaintive tone, becoming increasingly poignant toward the final tracks. Robert Scott Thompson takes us from low, fog-thick banks of mist high into the sky and into clarity - panoramic and angelic. The shifts of mood across this album are quite dramatic - allow yourself to be immersed and you'll find moments of that aching beauty that pulls at the heart and passages of moody ambience, folding in on themselves, heaving, breathing. A latticed cloudscape adorns the front cover, heavy and luminous at the same time, against blue sky. The faintest crescent of a moon gleams through the brightest section of the cloudbank, enlarged and presented again on the back cover as a backdrop for a tracklisting. The sleeve booklet is backed by a cloud image of a dramatically different hue - the deepest of oranges, brighter and more saturated still within. Here inside are publishing details and contact information - simple and white, making the eye tend to keep drifting across the mass of colour filling two whole panels. This is a strong album of slow drifting melodies and washes, well captured in track titles - Water Out of Sunlight, Tinted in a Temporal Hue, Figured in the Drift of Stars. The longest piece on the CD is ten minutes fifty nine seconds long - the shortest one minute forty seven, this great spread mirroring the variety of sound within the individual pieces. Robert Scott Thompson is no newcomer to the ambient scene having a large number of releases under his belt as you can see from the website at Aucourant Records.Ambient fans who enjoy music without a beat - quite melodic in structure, not really minimal and with plenty of shifts in atmosphere. Moody music with passages of melancholy and intense beauty.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 2006
These intermedia works are predicated on the notion of “kinetic electronic painting.” The video has become almost completely subverted as an artistic medium by television, and essentially languishes as a means of reportage - however obtuse the content may be. Yet, the techniques of digital image manipulation are highly congruent with those of electroacoustic music composition and sound processing - with the use of filtering, modulation, time and spectrum manipulations, and so on. It may be natural, therefore, for the electroacoustic music composer to become interested in the visual domain as enlivened by the context of video synthesis.
My goal is to create works that might best be described as “visual music” - a synergistic melding of electronic sound and electronic image that I originally investigated beginning in 1981. Generally, my musical work tends toward abstraction in morphology and conception, and this is also true of my visual music works which eschew transparent narrativity in favor of a more enigmatic expression of shape, density, light and color in the visual domain.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 1991
Robert Scott Thompsons debut CD release, DEEPER IN THE DREAMTIME, features 14 exquisite tracks of innovative and unique music in the contemporary instrumental and ambient genres. At over 70 minutes in duration, the music found on this disc ranges from expansive orchestral textures to subtle ambient gems to upbeat polyrhythmic pieces. Broadcast in over 38 countries around the world, this disc has garnered positive critical response and an enthusiastic audience.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 2011
Folio Volume One features instrumental sounds by Jan Baker (saxophone), John Fonville (flute) and Stuart Gerber (percussion). Included in this recording is Fae Oot O Killyglen, composed for the Belfast Imagined project of the Five Points Journal of Literature and Art. This acousmatic work features voices from County Antrim in a three-section setting together with other acoustic and synthetic sounds. Escape Velocities is a composition for flute that originated as models performed by John Fonville in 1989 in La Jolla, California. Aviary is an homage to the great artist Alwin Nikolais and Imaginal for JC in Four Thirty-three is an homage to Cage.
The Folio series features various miscellaneous compositions that develop out of my general practice. These works are the result of explorations into the modeling of sounds and musical structures that typically result in more elaborated and concentrated works. In some ways they are “sketches” or compositional studies. Some of these experimental pieces, composed on an on-going basis, turn out to be more than mere exercises and are able to stand on their own as separate compositions. The Folio series sheds light into my compositional process and also collects a number of the more interesting of these miscellaneous works.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 2011
Folio Volume Two features instrumental sounds by Jan Baker (saxophone), Ken Long (bass clarinet) and Stuart Gerber (percussion) all of which are processed and elaborated using a custom signal processing program in Max 6 (Cycling ’74). Included in this recording is The Musical Box, a work that features prepared piano sounds utilizing percussion instruments inside the piano (including the inner workings of a wind-up music box). Lunation Cycle explores the timbres and textures of the soprano saxophone. Liminality - Homage to Iannis Xenakis is based entirely in transformations of piano sounds. The final work on the disc, ...Of The Dreaming, is inspired by the didjeridu and features the sounds of the bass clarinet. All works were composed in 2011.
The Folio series features various miscellaneous compositions that develop out of my general practice. These works are the result of explorations into the modeling of sounds and musical structures that typically result in more elaborated and concentrated works. In some ways they are “sketches” or compositional studies. Some of these experimental pieces, composed on an on-going basis, turn out to be more than mere exercises and are able to stand on their own as separate compositions. The Folio series sheds light into my compositional process and also collects a number of the more interesting of these miscellaneous works.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 1998
Robert Scott Thompson has the ability to take one through textures of soundscape into worlds of the imagination. Although there is almost a consistent mood of the melancholy sublime, the flow is complex, and touches both the dark and the light. There is a journey through space and time that is both familiar and mysterious. Sometimes the sounds are worldly, other times they are unworldly. This work is a masterpiece of atmospheric ambient.
The landmark follow-up CD to The Silent Shore, a recording considered by many to be a "classic" in the modern ambient genre. Frontier quickly became a favorite of critics and connoisseurs alike and further established Robert Scott Thompson as a leading figure in the ambient and electronic music scene.
Magnificent sounds bubble up, glide and cascade into a realm of imagination and fantasy, shapeshifting, resonating and reverberating with a primal and at the same time sacral effervescence so gentle and yet so powerful culminating into a quiet fortitude.
This is music of a grand scale, a hybrid combining space, ambient, and atmospheric music elements but so expertly seamed together that the end result is a composition so unique, so distinctly original as to evoke feelings of awe, wonder and grandeur.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 2008
Very good ambient textures that reminds of a mix between Steve Roach and Harold Budd.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 2002 / 2007
Sidereal is a new semi-long form ambient recording from Robert Scott Thompson. Sidereal is Thompson s musical impression of the background noise of the universe, that miasma of cosmic static that permeates all of space. Which is not to say that Sidereal mimics or recreates those sounds of the cosmos. Instead, what ambient music pioneer Thompson has done is create a work that is truly sublime and exists in a constant yet subdued state of flux.
However, even more of a testament is that Sidereal has moments so wonderful that you may want to freeze frame the CD and just bathe in the musical bliss you hear at any one moment.
The pervasive background textures (which are barely there sometimes) lend an air of cosmic spaciness to Sidereal. On headphones, this continuous stream of electronic shading is better appreciated than on speakers, although on loudspeakers, the music takes on a more traditional ambient feel and gives the CD a certain palpable spaciousness and openness as the music hits the listening environment.

Like Robert s last album (the ultra-ambitious and awesome Acousma), reviewing an album like this is not about relating a blow-by-blow account. It s more a study in capturing the mood and sensations of the album. I don t know that I could even do that very well (without writing another 1,000 words) but Sidereal is an amazing album because it somehow manages to be intellectually (and artistically) challenging and stimulating yet is also completely accessible for almost any ambient or spacemusic fan. One section of Sidereal is blissful with floating synth chords matched against high-pitched synths lending an air of celestial magic. This is followed by an alien soundscape of whirling effects, disturbing 2001-ish drones, and a sense of immense expanses of blackness. Yet later, arrhythmic clangs and percussive effects play out against piano that recalls parts of Ennio Morricone s score to Carpenter s The Thing - a tangible sense of dread and loneliness settles over the music. Then, the music quiets way down with a simple background machine-like drone (almost like the background noise on the spaceship Discovery from 2001). This section morphs into Eno-esque ambient heaven - full of minimal piano, gentle synth shadings, and a sense of gossamer-thin beauty, held together by plucked-strings and graceful snippets of melody. If you like spacemusic or floating ambient music, I d find it hard to believe that you won t enjoy exploring the various sonic terrains that Robert Scott Thompson maps on Sidereal. I played this CD five or six times and enjoyed it more each time, as layer upon layer of the album revealed itself to me. It s also the rare ambient recording that rewards both direct and indirect listening. Somewhere between light and dark, Sidereal sets its course for the area of deep space which can be both inviting and scary as it reminds us of how infinite the universe is and yet also how, with spiritual synchronicity, we fit squarely into it all. Sidereal (if there is any justice) should finally garner the praise and recognition that has eluded Robert Scott Thompson for far too long. It s that good an album and comes highly recommended.

Artist: Robert Scott Thompson
P: 1996
This album explores both the darker, nether regions of the ambient genre as well as the lighter, more stratospheric realms. Any ambient music connoisseur will recognize that Robert Scott Thompson is firmly rooted in the ambient tradition by hearing in his music the influence of the genre's pioneers - Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and Steve Roach.