Robert Rich - Filaments (2015)

Recorded 2012-2014 by Robert Rich at Soundscape, Mountain View, CA. Mixed and mastered in Autumn 2014. ©(p) 2015 by Robert Rich, BMI. Instruments include MOTM and Euro modular, DSI P12 and Pro2, Lap Steel Guitars (by Todd Plummer and Morrell), Korg Wavestation and M3, zither, piano, Eowave Ribbon and Resonator, various other instruments. Thanks to many, including Synthesis Technology, Dave Smith Instruments, 2C Audio, Izotope, Old Crow, STG, Ableton, and of course Dixie. Front cover painting Luminary © Nad Wolinska, inside painting Three Spheres Reflecting Upon Each Other © Daniel Cake, used with permission and gratitude. Luminary photo by Christian Tanimoto III. Design and layout by John Bergin.

Filaments are the strands of condensed energy-matter that formed out of the earliest inflationary period in our universe, and helped pull together the gasses that eventually became our cosmos. A Majorana Fermion is a particle that is also its own antiparticle. In condensed matter physics, it might help us understand how superconductivity works, and in cosmology it might hold a key to the puzzle of dark matter. Scintilla describes the light of the stars, which help us look back into time as well as distance. Aetherfields ponders the idea that empty space might actually have a propagating substrate, an aether - an idea rejected in the last century, but reexamined more recently, to try once again to unify gravitation with quantum physics. Entangled gets its name from a special relationship between two particles, when the state of one can be known by the state its entangled partner (for example, the polarity of two photons that have been generated symmetrically.) Bell's Theorem allows that in this manner, information might travel faster than light. Eulalia is a group of near-earth asteroids, and (495) Eulalia is identified as the source for a meteorite landing near Sutter's Mill CA in 2013. It appears that much of the earth's past and future - and the ingredients for life itself - are shaped by frequent bombardments from space. Laniakea is the name given to our local supercluster of galaxies, spanning 160 megaparsecs with around 100,000 galaxies including the Milky Way. Aetherfolds imagines the warping of space-time by gravitation or motion. Telomeres are repeating bits of DNA at the tips of our chromosomes, which augment every time a cell divides. Perhaps these act as ticking clocks, defining our biological age, reminding every cell of our mortality.

Tracklist:

1. Filaments 4:58
2. Majorana 10:45
3. Scintilla 3:47
4. Aetherfields 5:22
5. Entangled 10:54
6. Eulalia 5:44
7. Laniakea 3:54
8. Aetherfolds 3:54
9. Telomere 9:58