On a Continuous Form by Richard Chartier

Minimalist sound art has a sometimes deserved reputation for failing to evoke much of anything, but some notable exceptions really annihilate this stereotype. One such exception, newly released On a Continuous Form by Richard Chartier, places the listener in distinct and familiar locations with each movement. From moment to moment, we find ourselves under a railroad bridge, below deck at a football game, or alongside a highway in the rain, but in Chartier’s hands each of these moments becomes lonely and unsettling, as if you’re recounting a memory with all dialogue, internal and external, cleanly removed with only ambient sound remaining.

Chartier’s artist statement to come out alongside this release suggests that each moment of On a Continuous Form gives him the chance to delve deeper into a sound that he had already investigated early in his career, discovering depth within elements which before had only served as flavoring or afterthoughts. Unsurprisingly, On a Continuous Form flings us back in time, forcing our hands as we unpack moments that we didn’t even know we remembered. This is exactly the sort of journey that Richard Chartier can bring you on but that your dishwasher could never.

-Michael