Robert Rich

Robert Rich (born August 23, 1963) is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he has been called a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient music, New-age music, and even IDM. Biography 1980s: sleep concerts and early career During Rich's time at Stanford University in the 1980s, he became well known in the San Francisco Bay Area for giving live night-time performances for somnolent or sleeping audiences. These were experiments to influence REM cycle sleep with auditory stimulus. They were usually nine hours long and lasted from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. During these performances, he would generate abstract drones and atmospheres while the audience dozed in sleeping bags that they brought themselves. In the morning he ended the concert with piano solos and served tea. During this time, he released four albums on cassette: Sunyata (1982), Trances (1983), Drones (1983), and his first live album titled Live (1984). The first of these was recorded when he was 18. The music on these albums reflects similar drone music atmospheres to those of his sleep concert series.