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ROBERT RICH
1-How would you describe music in a single phrase?
Vibrating energy that affects our minds in ways that augment or bypass language.
2-When you’re creating music, where do you start?
I tend to start with a direction that grows from inside like a new world waiting to be born. It starts to dictate to me what it should sound like. Then, I need to experiment, improvise, I call it “splat”, like throwing coffee on a canvas, and then slowly differentiate the direction from the non-direction.
3-What inspired your music?
Life keeps inspiring me, curiosity, fascination, awe, love of nature. It’s present, ongoing, not past-tense.
4-Deep silence or beautiful noise?
It’s not either-or, it’s the contrast of one with the other as they coexist. Shadows don’t exist without light. The edges are the most interesting places.
5-In a few words, how would you describe the concept and sound of your new album "Reunion of Breath and Waves"?
Michael and I had some concepts, but quickly tossed them out the window. It became a conversation between old friends, our first time writing music together in the studio. I think we both work well in a reinforcing mode, positive feedback, constructive rather than critical, and trusting each other’s intuitions. We’re both veterans at this, and we like each other’s work, so we know that we share a wealth of good technique. The sound of the album is wide-ranging, and I might venture to say it dips into many musical languages while it doesn’t linger very long in any one vocabulary.
6-What is the ideal environment to listen to music?
It depends on the music. Some music is meant for social gatherings, parties, community. That’s absolutely valid. Other music is meant for quiet times, focusing, deep listening, or intimacy. Personally, I prefer when people listen to my music in more quiet settings, when the small details can have better contrast. I don’t think of my music as background or foreground in particular, requiring full-frontal attention or expecting only to add perfume to the space. For many of my releases, I think a strange place happens in between outward and inward attention, and I like this middle ground. However, I do think people hear it the best when they pay attention.
7-What’s the most beautiful part of being an artist?
The exact same thing that is the most beautiful part of being alive: seeking meaning in existence, finding love in many small ways, listening to the world and other life all around us, paying attention as best we can. If we can make a living out of paying attention, that’s an incredible gift. One does not need to be a professional artist to seek meaning. Paying attention gives meaning. Even if it’s only a hobby, making art (whatever medium it is) gives satisfaction at a deep level of being human.
GUSTAVO DENOUARD
1. How would you describe music in a single phrase?
Music is a sonic bridge between the tangible world and the infinite spaces of human emotion.
2. When you’re creating music, where do you start?
I usually start with a single, raw texture—a drone or a specific frequency from a synthesizer. I let that sound breathe and evolve until it establishes a mood, and then I begin sculpting the space around it, allowing the piece to guide its own direction.
3. What inspired your music?
My deepest inspirations come from the quiet moments of existence: the vastness of nature, the stillness of the night, and the profound, humbling mystery of the cosmos. I try to capture the feeling of looking out into the unknown.
4. In a few words, how would you describe the concept and sound of your last album "Echoes of the Cosmos"?
It is a cinematic, deeply atmospheric journey that explores the concept of cosmic echoes. Sonically, it blends expansive synthesizer drones, shimmering textures, and minimal ambient layers to evoke the vast, beautiful isolation of outer space.
5. What is the ideal environment to listen to music?
A dimly lit, quiet room, preferably with a pair of good headphones, where you can close your eyes, let go of the physical surroundings, and fully immerse yourself in the sonic landscape.