richard chartier: interreferences

For over two decades, Richard Chartier has interrogated an ever-deepening thread of minimalist sonics that forge together questions of stasis, pulse and timbre. The results of this work are some of the most quietly intense compositions of this century. His is a music of subtle variation, unwavering concentration and also patience. At his 50th year, Chartier's focus continues to deepen and Interreferences is easily his most resolved work in that it brings together his appreciation for pulsing low energy matched against a restrained upper frequency detail. It is a work of perceptual contrast, but sonic accumulation. A note from Richard Chartier: "I find myself at the collision of an inflection point and more over a reflection point. 50 years on this planet. I still find it difficult to write about my work. This is not because I cannot, but because I want the listener to approach my compositions of sound as such. Focus on the sensorial nature rather than an explicit narrative or reasoning. I do not see my work as abstraction but rather purely abstract. I chose sound as my medium after many years as a painter. I slowly came to conclusion that I no longer understood how to communicate sensation via a pigmented surface. The visual language I was using had become foreign to me. Sound allowed me a language that was wordless, open, moving, shapeless yet full of forms, connections, and progressions. It raised questions though and these are still part of what I struggle with in the ways I chose to create and then speak of my work why these sounds? what is the attraction to these sounds? how did I arrive at these compositions and their placements? The pieces exist then as less of a statement, more of a question, but a question that will be different for each listener. For me, listening to them over and over, they will take another form as time passes. They evolve. For now, though, they are in limbo on a piece of plastic or a series of lines of data Often i am puzzled by how other artists create their work, how they come to decide arrangements, sequences of sounds or just the sounds themselves. That is the magic of music."