NEST is here!

It’s on our order form, https://dxc.securesites.com/cdorders.html, but it might take a few days to show up elsewhere on this website because there are some design changes underway…

…From the liner notes:

Nest

A revery of landscape and internal spaces.

Maleny, Queensland Australia. February is summertime in

this subtropical paradise. I heard dripping sounds late

at night, on the wooden deck and leaves nearby, sparse

percussion among cicadas and chirping tree frogs. I assumed

it was condensation from morning’s light rain. Next day, I

looked up to see these drops coming from foamy packets

suspended in forked twigs among the foliage. Tiny dots of

frog eggs filled each frothy airborne puddle. These tree

frogs had circumvented an amphibian’s need for standing

water for their young to mature. They created their own

diaphanous ponds in the leaf canopy, strong enough to stay

intact as eggs hatched and tadpoles developed lungs and

legs, yet porous enough to absorb and retain moisture from

the light summer rains. To me it seemed miraculous.

Nest represents unfinished business for me. It’s an album

that might have come from my childhood, from a hidden quiet

place. I rarely make such calm music. Nest folds inward

like a nurturing cushion; yet it never sits motionless, it

evolves towards a kernel of revelation with slow searching

energy.

Nest began with recordings from the eastern Australian

bush,Â when I was on tour in February 2012. I often

incorporate natural sounds into my music, but this music

wanted to live entirely in outdoor soundscapes, surrounded

by a subdued yet palpable sense of life. This texture

resembles my earliest releases like Sunyata, Trances and

Drones, where the natural world integrates completely with

the music.

I approach these juxtapositions of music and nature

recordings with caution, as they risk sounding trite. For

me, the combination works best when the music retains an

attentive, submissive quality. For an album like this, I

remove so much material during creation that I struggle to

leave any music at all. Each note serves primarily to

outline its own absence, to create an illusion of silence.

Like much of my music, Nest also explores tuning systems,

including just intonation. Over time I have become more

relaxed about tuning, shifting where the instruments sound

most natural. Nest navigates towards harmonic intervals when

piano is absent, toward equal temperament when piano

dominates, searching for a certain fragile balance.

Robert Rich – August 2012