Robert Rich's Trinity Session

125 people or so filled the Church of the Holy Trinity last night for a concert by ambient musician Robert Rich.

A book launch for Metta Spencer's Two Aspirin and a Comedy preceded the concert. Editor of Peace Magazine, Spencer sets out to answer the question: can entertainment be good for us? Rooted in the premise that culture is an environment that we all share and are responsible for protecting, Two Aspirin and a Comedy argues that viewers experience the same health effects from empathizing with fictional characters as they do from real life situations and relationships. Spencer’s book challenges cultural producers and consumers to change the storytelling industry by fostering a climate for socially responsible entertainment. Culture as environment: a nice segue into an evening of ambient music...

A highlight of this evening, for me, was the opportunity to hear waveforms (the source material for dreamSTATE's 1996 Between Realities CD) in quadraphonic sound. Originally mounted as a sound installation in a holographic gallery in the Beaches, waveforms enveloped the audience before the concert and between sets. Although I've loved this music for years -- well before falling in love with one of its creators! -- this experience highlighted the fact that stereo sound just doesn't do this album justice. Last night, the waveforms swept across the church, filling the space with a sense of tranquility interstitially punctuated by moments of darkness as the music changed direction, signaling departures into less certain territories.

In the first set, Robert Rich performed his live accompaniment to Daniel Colvin's fine art film. Colvin's film presents a series of shifting images that explore our perceptions of nature, vision, space and art. The images morph through a series of aesthetic perspectives ranging from the abstract to the realistic to the surreal. Colvin's intricate use of texture and colour field creates the sense of an evolving human consciousness within the natural world. Rich's dynamic live improvisations added dramatic energy to the non-linear unfolding of the film. Haunting flute passages and delicately perculating sequences provided a layer of emotional resonance absent from the conceptually-based film images. The non-linear, non-verbal quality of this collaboration does, however, raise questions about accessibility. I sensed that I was not the only member of the audience feeling restless midway through this set. The music was less ambient than expected, lacking the quality of being "as ignorable as it [was] interesting." Unable to get lost in the moment, I recalled a panel discussion I witnessed at a radio art conference last year about the tyranny of narrative. Traditional narrative may deemed banal by the avant garde, but I still find it satisfying.

After a short intermission, Rich returned with a gorgeously varied and more deeply ambient second set. Green and red lazers provided the visual ambience, subtly underpinning the atmospheric effects of Rich's integration of tribal rhythms with steel guitar and flute. Adding to this, the gamelan-influence was more pronounced as Rich played more keyboard during this set. I had to agree with my friend Catherine Tammaro's response: "the second set really spoke to me."

All in all, a great event in a great venue. Another neat tidbit that came out of the evening: I discovered that Perren Baker, a friend of ours, recorded one of my all-time favourite albums, the The Trinity Session, here back in 1987.