Robert Rich — Somnium. The brief history of the 7-hour ambient album

A 7-hour album. The longest continuous piece of music in history that has been officially released. In April 2001, this was indeed the case. While studying foreign music, young Robert Rich learned about midnight musical performances in the villages of Indonesia. He also knew about Terry Riley’s hours-long keyboard improvisations and John Cage’s long radio performances. He began to wonder: how does the audience feel listening to them? So, as a first-year student at Stanford, he posted invitations all over the town to bring sleeping bags and come to the first all-night concert of 1982. About twenty people came. A third of them did not sleep and watched Robert create very quiet ambient and drone music for them with minimal equipment.