Somnium
Encyclopedia
Somnium is an album by the American
ambient
musician Robert Rich
. It is a seven-hour album on a DVD
-video and is based on Rich’s sleep concert series of the early 1980’s. Like those concerts, the music on this album was composed to influence the dreams and pre-REM hypnogogic visions of the listener. For this purpose it is suggested that the volume be kept down to the threshold of perceptibility, ideally with speakers surrounding the listener’s bed. Rich also recommends this album for conventional listening.
For a brief period at the beginning of the album there is a slightly more active texture while the listener adjusts the volume and settles down to sleep. As the music progresses it slowly drifts through a variety of electronic drones as well as acoustic source material and nature recordings. The third and final track gradually fades into a morning atmosphere filled with bird songs.
In order to allow for the album's seven-hour length it was released on the DVD-video format instead of DVD-Audio
. Rich also wanted to avoid the digital artifacts caused by compression. To achieve this the frames of video that a DVD player uses to navigate inside a chapter were not included. In spite of this, the second track had to be compressed using Dolby
AC-3 encoding in order to maintain the album’s length.
It has been estimated that this is the longest single piece of music ever committed to a commercially recorded format.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
musician Robert Rich
Robert Rich (musician)
Robert Rich is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he is widely regarded as a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient, New Age, and even IDM music.-Early life:At an early age he thought he disliked music...
. It is a seven-hour album on a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
-video and is based on Rich’s sleep concert series of the early 1980’s. Like those concerts, the music on this album was composed to influence the dreams and pre-REM hypnogogic visions of the listener. For this purpose it is suggested that the volume be kept down to the threshold of perceptibility, ideally with speakers surrounding the listener’s bed. Rich also recommends this album for conventional listening.
For a brief period at the beginning of the album there is a slightly more active texture while the listener adjusts the volume and settles down to sleep. As the music progresses it slowly drifts through a variety of electronic drones as well as acoustic source material and nature recordings. The third and final track gradually fades into a morning atmosphere filled with bird songs.
In order to allow for the album's seven-hour length it was released on the DVD-video format instead of DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos....
. Rich also wanted to avoid the digital artifacts caused by compression. To achieve this the frames of video that a DVD player uses to navigate inside a chapter were not included. In spite of this, the second track had to be compressed using Dolby
Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. , often shortened to Dolby Labs, is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression.-History:...
AC-3 encoding in order to maintain the album’s length.
It has been estimated that this is the longest single piece of music ever committed to a commercially recorded format.
Track listing
- "Part 1" – 155:00 (2:35:00)
- "Part 2" – 119:57 (1:59:57)
- "Part 3" – 144:54 (2:24:54)