Richard Chartier Archival 1991 CroutonCD Available through the Helen Scarsdale Agency: $14.00 Headphones are the only way that one can appreciate, much less hear the subtleties of Richard Chartier’s current body of work. This self-contained, highly mediated headspace effectively removes the listener from the context of the real, and allows Chartier free access to move tiny plastic sounds around as an ultra-quiet form of Minimalism. Despite (or possibly because of) these constraints, Chartier often succeeds in his poetry of the micro-fragment; however, these constrains also reflect an aesthetic of control, which is certainly heard within Archival 1991, a revisitation of his earlier Industrially tinged dronescapes. This attractively expansive tapestry of sound is firmly entrenched within the audible spectrum, and manifests an undefinably paranoiac ambience that reflected the aesthetics of early ‘90s contemporaries such as Lustmord, Schloss Tegal, and PGR. The control mechanisms of Archival 1991 take root in the shadowy metaphors that reflect a slice of the sublime for the audience to be in awe of.