Akira Rabelais — CXVI (Feb. 6, 2019) •ο→    Vincent Akira Rabelais Carté is an American composer, poet, software programmer and experimental multimedia artist. He is most known for his 2004 record on Samadhi Sound, Spellewauerynsherde, as well as his experimental audio processing software Argeïphontes Lyre, and his works which take inspiration from magic realism.
•ο→    Né dans le Sud du Texas, vivant à Los Angeles, Akira Rabelais est compositeur, concepteur de logiciel et auteur. Son logiciel, l’ “Argeïphontes Lyre”, permet des manipulations sonores et visuelles à l’aide de morphologies et de bruit déformé. Il présente un grand nombre de filtres tels que: Eviscération Réanimation, Synthèse de Modulation de Fréquence Dynamique, Mutation du Domaine Temporel, Désintégration Morphologique et La Quadrille des Homards. Enfant, il fabrique ses premiers instruments de musique à l’aide de plaques de tir et de fils barbelés utilisés comme clôture de ranch. Akira a étudié la composition, la musique électronique et l’orchestration avec Bill Dixon. Il a obtenu un Master sous la direction de Morton Subotnick et de Tom Erbe au California Institute of the Arts. Selon Rabelais, l’écriture de logiciels peut se comparer à l’écriture de poèmes.
Born: March 28, 1966, South Texas, U.S.
Genres: Electronic experimental computer music ambient
Instruments: Computer, piano
Location: Chicago, IL ~ Los Angeles, CA
Album release: February 6, 2019
Record Label: Border Community
Duration:     78:25
Tracks:
1. Which Alters When It Alteration Finds   19:57
2. Star to Every Wandring Worth’s Unknown   18:57
3. Within Bending Sickle’s Compass Come   19:43
4. If Error and Upon Me Proved   19:48
Dramatis Personæ:
•ο→ Akira Rabelais, Ben Frost, Harold Budd, Mélanie Skriabine, Kassel Jaeger, Karen Vogt, Cedrick Coriolis, Geir Jenssen, Bogdan D. Smith, and Stephan Mathieu.
Review
by James Catchpole
•ο→    CXVI is a quiet episode, a lengthy pause away from the cacophony of noise pollution. Years in the making, the record features collaborations from the likes of Harold Budd, Ben Frost, Biosphere (Geir Jenssen), Kassel Jaeger, and Stephan Mathieu. Hollywood~based composer Akira Rabelais delivers a challenging album, and perhaps a defining one — not so much because of the list of contributors but rather because of the meticulous study involved. He demonstrates dedication and a deep desire to push himself and his techniques into unexplored realms. Incorporating shoegaze, the sensitive aesthetics of ASMR, the studious area of textural sound design, and classical elements from centuries past, Rabelais produces an outstanding record that has at its heart a quiet intensity.
•ο→    In the midst of fluttering electronics, sparse piano notes lie isolated, cut off from one another, and with no accessible way to reach each other. Imperceptible changes in phrasing occur along the way, eventually slowing down to the point where several seconds pass by without any activity. Only silence. That silence flows into the listener, producing a deep calm. Its long stretches and elongated pauses help in unravelling a shush like that of Basinski’s The Garden of Brokenness.
•ο→    Later on, Mélanie Skriabine reads from Max Ernst’s ‘la femme 100 têtes’, a delicate exercise in ASMR that poetically glides along, the French rolling off the tongue and producing music in its reading. It’s refreshing to hear such a quiet and restrained approach that is nonetheless alive and free. The mysterious music walks through old grounds and passes through ancient mausoleums; Skriabine’s voice is like an offshoot of ivy, covering the wrinkled stone of a thin, barely~traceable melody. Her voice, along with a lowering of the volume and a conversational tone, like that of being on the phone late at night, speaking in soothing whispers, creates a deep intimacy between herself and the listener. No one else is here, and that adds to the general feeling of isolation. While isolation can be unwanted and frightening, the music doesn’t seem to be afraid despite succumbing to a process of continuous fading; it’s drifting, becoming ever more distant by the second.
•ο→    Karen Vogt’s plainsong segues into a long and frozen drone (‘within bending sickles compass come’), with Akira’s sustained, glistening notes perpetually ringing out through an icy cavern, dripping eternally. The coda, ‘if error and upon me proved’, cuts up the piano’s tone with a pervasive, flickering distortion, as harsh as a whip. The invasive presence stalks and then settles over a mysterious, almost~celestial drone, becoming the dominant force in the music…but it never completely overrides a billowing, ethereal atmosphere. The whispering voice that follows takes place as if in a fugue…or a nightmare.
•ο→    CXVI is a refined album — and one would expect that, given the length of its production — but the highly detailed nature of the work never obscures the music; one can feel the efforts involved, but the music always slides along smoothly. The result is one of the most impressive ‘quiet’ albums of the decade.  •ο→ https://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/
Website: http://akirarabelais.com/ 
Ambient blog: https://www.ambientblog.net/blog/2019-02-13/rabelais-cxvi/ 
Book of Changes: http://www.akirarabelais.com/i/i.html#61
Studio albums:
• Elongated Pentagonal Pyramid (1999, Ritornell)
• Eisoptrophobia (2001, Ritornell)
• ...Bénédiction, Draw. (2003, Ortholorng Musork)
• Spellewauerynsherde (2004, Samadhi Sound)
• A.M. Station (2005, En/Of)
• Hollywood (2008, Schoolmap)
• Caduceus (2010, Samadhi Sound)
• The Little Glass (2015, self~released)
• cxvi (2019, Boomkat Editions)
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