Full Spectrum Records closes out another banner year with an expansive new work from long-time label associate Carl Ritger: ‘Glance White Into the Dark.’
A compendium of Ritger’s studio practice over the course of the past 3 years, ‘Glance White Into the Dark’ compiles extended guitar techniques, experiments in modular synthesis, and snippets culled from live performances, intermingled with heavily processed field recordings collected in locales as far afield as the Fryingpan River [CO], Esopus Creek [Upstate NY], and Ritger’s erstwhile home of Philadelphia, PA.
This is music that is proudly broad and spacious in scope, with ideas being given permission to unfurl and elaborate themselves gradually. Indeed, much of this material began life, in concept, as environmental music, before being whittled down and given proper context. To wit – the guitar loops that appear on “Hail, Isais!” were created by playing the instrument from across the room with a can of keyboard duster as a sort of low-budget aeolian harp, while elsewhere on the album layered recordings of dry ice popping in a metal bowl seep into the mix, generating a synthetic “false” environment for the rest of the sounds to live within.
This emphasis on decontextualization of sound has become a hallmark of Ritger’s work under his own name, providing a clear counterpoint to his earlier and perhaps more visceral recordings as Radere. ‘Glance White Into the Dark’ therefore stands as a collection of echoes – or more aptly, surveyed resonances – of the places in which he has found meaning and depth in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as a sonic dissection of what it means to have to reorient oneself within the grander context of one’s own life.
credits
released December 2, 2022
Carl Ritger - guitar, synthesizers, electronics, found percussion, field recordings
Field recordings captured on the Fryingpan River [CO], Esopus Creek [NY], and the Delaware River Watershed [PA], 2020-21
Additional recordings & assemblage completed at home in Exton, PA, Winter 2022
Full Spectrum Records releases the works of experimental musicians and sound artists, with an ear towards idiosyncratic tones, extended time frames and unique compositional approaches.
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