blue fifty-four: Ben Richter

Ben Richter is an accordionist, composer and leader of the New York-based Ghost Ensemble, who perform the work of Pauline Oliveros – who Ben studied under – and others, and advocate for her philosophy of Deep Listening.

In his release for Blue Tapes – the 54th in our regular series – Ben explores what feels like every conceivable tone and utility available to the accordion as instrument, gently bending and stretching each into a new kind of music.

For me, it’s very similar to how Tashi Dorji, another Blue Tapes artist, coaxes a new language out of his instrument by finding musical expression in some of the less intentionally musical functions of the guitar.

In blue fifty-four, this finds expression in a trilogy of breath sounds, room creaks and reed squeaks that opens the release. Minimal musical elements that nevertheless feel immersive and create a compelling narrative.

“By internally preparing the instrument so the airflow behaves differently, the accordion produces mostly breath sounds, with a little bit of ‘shadow pitch’,” Ben explains, “a ghostly pianissimo murmuring of the reeds, much softer than the ongoing air noise. Occasionally, the reeds ‘jump’ into speaking at a more normal dynamic.

“The recordings blend these shadow pitch effects with the natural sounds of the environment — my own breathing, the creaky old house, sometimes a distant bird or car sound. This is very much in the spirit of creating a sonic space to inhabit, more so than a piece of music with directional movement — but then the space starts to become multi-dimensional as the recordings are layered over one another in the second half of the side. A soft and gentle hyperspace.”

The second side of blue fifty-four takes these implied musics and builds them out into transportive, soaring drones that are, as Ben himself describes, “ecstatic with more melody and harmony, dissonance and (sometimes) consonance… mellow, ambient and floating.”

It is music that amply fulfils the promise and potential of Deep Listening as a concept

“Pauline certainly helped open my mind about what I thought was possible,” says Ben of his former mentor. “As an accordionist, I grew a healthy obsession with all the different ways to manipulate airflow in the instrument and how those methods can affect vibration in various ways, and more generally, I always try to ask myself what boxes I might accidentally be putting myself in and what music might be able to happen outside of them, if their walls were no longer around.”

Praise for Ben Richter

“You’ll have to majorly appreciate the sound of the accordion, and its powers of deep, sustained drone – think Pauline Oliveros, who Richter studied under – to get the most out of the solo set. For my money, it’s some of the most powerful experimental music of the last 12 months or more, 74 minutes of dramatic, sweeping tonality that nods to and builds on pioneers like Tony Conrad and La Monte Young.” – Buzz

“Richter’s approach involves a prepared instrument and use of microtones to evoke haunting soundscapes. He creates slowly undulating, overlapping walls of sound. While drones are all the rage these days, using the accordion in this fashion is novel and compelling.” – Avant Music News

“Inspired by nonhuman consciousness, Ben’s compositions orient toward new orders of magnitude to auralise timescales we do not experience in everyday life, employing just intonation, gradual fluctuations in timbre, and the liminal space of near-unison pitch relationships.” - Prxludes