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Reviews

Barry Cleveland & Robert Rich — Elliptical Passage
(Bandcamp No #, 2025, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-01-14

Elliptical Passage Cover art

The world of dreams is a seemingly coherent one, at least while one is experiencing them, they seem to have their own past, present and future built into them, until one wakes up suddenly and realizes it all made no sense. If you don’t wake up then you’re likely to forget the experience and simply move on to the next one. But does anyone know how dreams begin? It seems like the subject just falls into a dreamworld that has always been there, with no real beginning; it pre-existed before you got there, and you just blend right into the scene more or less seamlessly. Such could be said of the six tracks on Elliptical Passage, the latest collaboration between Barry Cleveland (guitar, pizzicato arpeggione, bass, gongs, bowed cymbals, loopers) and Robert Rich (Piano, flute, lap steel, percussion, Prophet X, Haken Continuum), two composers with long histories creating majestic tapestries of sound. Each of the six cuts flows seamlessly into the next one, much like a sequence of dreams, it’s only after one is well into the next sequence that a recognition is made that something has changed, it’s not like it was before and your perceptual sensing has shifted into a new world – it’s subtle and dreamlike, one might not even recognize the changes. These pieces started life as some solo loops that Cleveland recorded years ago and conveniently forgot about, then suggested to Rich that they collaborate to build them into something far beyond their humble beginnings, and through numerous layers upon layers added by each in a lengthy back and forth process, the six pieces chosen ended up blossoming into the powerful set that appears here. With titles like “Luminous Expanse,” “Beckoning Voices,” “Gathering Stars” and the title track, one can imagine these magical ambient soundworlds that grow and morph as they expand to all corners of the universe and echo back to the source. And the listener is right in the middle of it all, in a dream that has no beginning or end. 

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Robert Rich, Barry Cleveland

More info
http://robertrich.bandcamp.com/album/elliptical-passage

 

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