Temple of the Invisible finds Robert Rich at his most organic, eschewing the trappings of modernity or stylistic boundaries. Using only simple acoustic instruments, Rich has crafted a document from a distant time and place, a lost culture with musical underpinnings that reach from Java to North Africa, from Medieval Europe to the Tibetan Plateau. Rich uses the music of this unknown civilization as a platform to express an intensely personal quest.

Each piece documents part of a lost ritual, with mythical and spiritual components conveyed through a strangely familiar yet foreign musical language, as if unearthed from an ancient common ancestry.

Contributors include Sukhawat Ali Khan (son of the great Indian vocalist Salamat Ali Khan), Paul Hanson (from Bela Fleck & Flecktones, Wayne Shorter, Zenith Patrol), Percy Howard (from Meridiem, Bill Laswell), and noted solo artists Forrest Fang and Tom Heasley, adding dimension and power to this mysterious world out of time.

Instruments

Robert Rich: prepared piano, mallet kalimba, flutes, percussion, zithers
Sukhawat Ali Khan: voice
Forrest Fang: baglama, gu zheng
Paul Hanson: bombard, bassoon
Tom Heasley: voice, conch
Percy Howard: voice

Song List