Search - Robert Scott Thompson :: Acousma

Robert Scott Thompson is a fashioner of surreal dreamscapes. Acoustic and electroacoustic sound sources interpenetrate and fuse, leaving one to question whether the timbres one hears are remembered and recognized accurately, or if they mimic sounds one thinks one may have heard in the past. The blending of familiar and unfamiliar elements is particularly rich in the opening track, Oneiromancy. This work, whose title — as the composer informs us — means divination by dreams, presents a bleak inner landscape reminiscent of the fascinating and yet unsettling fusion of organic and geometric forms in the paintings of Yves Tanguy. Clusters of discontinuous sounds give the impression of a flickering disembodied presence circling around more stable, continuous sounds. Many of the characteristic sounds found throughout the album are introduced here. This album is a summation of Thompson's acousmatic explorations of the last five years. It represents a culminating point of a resonant inner soundscape whose territories he has been charting with determination and elegance for well over a decade. The works presented here clearly proceed from the foundation established in his earlier electroacoustic releases The Strong Eye (1992) and Shadow Gazing (1994), while at the same time pointing toward a deepening synthesis between his avant-garde and ambient personae, the latter richly represented by The Silent Shore (1996), Frontier (1998) and Blue Day (2000). —Ronald Squibbs, Ph.D.