Elliptical Passage ranges from delicate and contemplative to majestically expansive to borderline cataclysmic. It began with hours of Cleveland’s looping guitar improvisations, layered and organized by Rich into an emotionally complex continuous arc, then sculpted further by both into a surprising and evocative journey. (Download and streaming only, no CD.)

1. Tangible Silence 6:55
2. Beckoning Voices 6:25
3. Elliptical Passage 8:31
4. Gathering Stars 12:53
5. Luminous Expanse 10:51
6. Zero of the Sanctified 9:30

Produced by Barry Cleveland and Robert Rich.
Mixed and mastered by Robert Rich.
BC: Guitar, pizzicato arpeggione, bass, gongs, bowed cymbals, loopers.
RR: Piano, flute, lap steel, percussion, Prophet X, Haken Continuum.
All compositions by Barry Cleveland and Robert Rich.
Primary guitar figure in “Zero of the Sanctified” derived from a line by Steve Rapetti.
© 2025 Barry Cleveland, Robert Rich, BMI. All rights reserved.
℗ 2025 ElevenEleven Music, Amoeba Music, BMI

Cover painting © by Maksimilian Novak-Zemplinski, used with permission

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This album had a curious beginning. While digging through my archives, I discovered several hours of improvised solo guitar music that I had recorded a decade earlier—and then completely forgotten. I had played through a digital amp and effects processor with an onboard synthesizer, into a looping device, likely in a single session. Surprisingly, the music possesses an uncanny coherence—including recurring melodic motifs—and when I pitched it to Robert as the basis of a collaboration, he was game.
 
I trimmed the recordings into shorter sections, and Robert then chose his favorites and deftly arranged them into a 55-minute arc with overlapping layers. His arrangement was essential, providing the structural foundation for the piece and generating striking harmonic and rhythmic juxtapositions.
 
From there, we began a process of creative volleying—adding new parts, responding to each other’s ideas, and watching the music expand in unexpected directions. The original tracks still predominate in long stretches, but many sections were entirely transformed. By the end, Robert had added piano, flute, lap steel, percussion, Prophet X, and Haken Continuum, while I had contributed additional guitar parts, pizzicato arpeggione, bass, fuzz bass, gongs, and bowed cymbals.
 
Elliptical Passage spans musical terrain ranging from delicate and contemplative to majestically expansive to borderline cataclysmic—and it’s unlike anything either of us has created before. We hope you enjoy the journey!
 
 —Barry Cleveland 

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Barry Cleveland is an LA-based composer, guitarist, recordist, journalist, and author. His seven albums showcase a range of styles from ambient to avant-rock to world fusion. Cleveland also penned the cult classic book Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques, and served as an editor at Guitar Player magazine for 12 years. (barrycleveland.com)

Robert Rich has released over 60 albums across five decades, defining his unique language of ambient electronic music. Rich began building synthesizers in 1976, when he was 13, and later studied computer music at Stanford’s CCRMA while researching lucid dreaming. His all-night Sleep Concerts have become legendary. (robertrich.com)

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A Review by Peter Thelen, Exposé Online 14 January 2026:

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.