Randy Gibson

Transcending Pandemic Constraints | 2021

The New York Times

"The first half of the album suggests the unfurling of daytime potential"

Night after Night | Album of The Week | 2020

Night after Night: For The Record

"... as eloquent an illustration of the group mind condition to which any drone performance aspires as anyone might hope to hear."

Dia Art Foundation blog profile | 2020

Behind the Scenes with Randy Gibson, Exhibitions Associate

"I wouldn’t be the artist I am without these years of service to La Monte and Marian. Their practice of continually refining work toward perfection is pivotal for me. This led me to design my own system of creating based on specific and consistent numbers from the harmonic series, which in turn allows me to travel further with each new work."

2017 End Of Year Lists featuring The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D | 2017

Best Drone Recording of 2017 (Sequenza 21)

"Composer Randy Gibson is best known for his compelling experiments with intonation. R. Andrew Lee is the go-to pianist for Wandelweiser and minimalist-oriented music. On Gibson’s The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield 16 VIII 10 (Kansas City), he meets Lee in the middle, creating a mammoth work out of very restricted means."

#1 Classical Album of 2017 (Textura)

"a remarkable achievement on multiple levels. That R. Andrew Lee performed the entire work live in one single, unedited three-and-a-half-hour performance is itself amazing, considering the stamina and concentration such an undertaking entails"

Top 10 Albums of 2017 (Chicago Reader)

"single tones separated by chasms of silence, for instance, or rapid tones that pile up overtones like billowing smoke—prevent it from growing tedious. The music stays in constant motion, exploring decay and harmony, and the closing movement, "Roaring," digs into the piano's bass register in a thrilling, thunderous climax."

The Four Pillars Appearing around the world | 2017

Marc Medwin explores the history of a single note for Dusted

"I have never heard piano and electronics joined in such complete symbiosis and to such organically singular effect. ... All elements converge to create one of the most important contributions to recorded piano music of at least the past 20 years."

Improv Sphere finds the beauty in duration (in French)

"Le moindre petit changement de rythme, l'introduction d'une seule note supplémentaire dans les nombreux clusters bourdonnants et martelés, chaque évènement est un bouleversement de l'ordre. Chaque nouveauté, si minime soit elle, explose tout l'espace, forme une nouvelle mélodie, dévie le bourdon de manière abrupte, et c'est toute la forme de la pièce qui change. Mais surtout, à un niveau moins formel, cette écoute révèle une beauté incroyable."

Textura explores the structure of The Four Pillars

"Though it might seem that a clear separation would exist between the acoustic and the electronic elements, the lines between them blur during the performance in a way that intensifies the music's hallucinatory effect. There are times, in fact, where the combination of overtones and electronic treatments is so powerful it begins to evoke other instrument associations."

A Single Note | Randy Gibson profiled in the New York Times | 2017

Seth Colter Walls profiles Randy Gibson for The New York Times

"As is sometimes the case with outwardly unvaried Minimalist music, the texture emerges from the overtones, the frequencies that sound above fundamental notes (in this case, those seven Ds on the piano). Mr. Gibson’s electronic design for the piece highlights these naturally occurring acoustic phenomena, making their ghostly quality more easily perceived."

I Care If You Listen covers Randy Gibson's Apparitions of The Four Pillars | 2016

Rebecca Lentjes brings historical insight to the Apparitions experience for I Care If You Listen

"Gibson's work engages with rhythms and temporality existing outside of our socially-constructed rhythms, offering a glimpse of time outside of time."

This Feeling of Eternity | Randy Gibson interviewed by Porter Anderson | 2016

Porter Anderson interviews Randy Gibson for Thought Catalog

"He's been working on Apparitions for seven years. Novelists can relate, speaking of slowing down. His music is ritualistic, spacious, luxuriantly unhurried, intensely focused."

Sound American: The Ritual Issue | 2015

Sound American 11: The Ritual As Questionnaire

"When I moved to New York and began studying with Khan Sahib La Monte Young, I was introduced to an even deeper ritualistic tradition. Khan Sahib teaches in the traditional Guru-disciple manner which he learned from his Guru, Pandit Pran Nath, and which is about so much more than just having a lesson. It’s experiencing the way he does things, the way he thinks about art and life and transcendence."

Apparitions of The Four Pillars in The New York Times | 2015

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim talks Apparitions for the New York Times

"The drone consisted of a booming, throbbing sine wave that filled the room along with the aroma of burning incense before the first visitors filed in."

Lana Norris shares her Apparitions experience for I Care If You Listen

"Pitch slowly curled into the air, each note taking minutes like skinny molasses as every musician joined with pristine control. Gibson's mentor, La Monte Young, says that "Tuning is a function of time ... the degree of precision is proportional to the duration of the analysis," and Apparitions of The Four Pillars... indeed gave both the audience and performers the luxury to consider each new interval."

Mounting The Four Pillars | Randy Gibson interviewed for Textura | 2014

Textura reviews a performance of Apparitions of The Four Pillars

"The six musicians - Gibson (voice and sine waves), Jen Baker and William Lang (trombones), Drew Blumberg and Erik Carlson (violins), and Meaghan Burke (cello) - collectively generated an hypnotic mass of slowly mutating sound that advanced almost imperceptibly."

Five Questions with Randy Gibson | 2013

Randy Gibson answers 5 Questions for I Care If You Listen

"there had been these themes running through my work...: repetition, extremely slow tempo, fluidity, unrepeatability; but they were sort of all just in a cloud, floating around with no real direction. La Monte helped to clarify the situation for me, to allow the space for my sounds to be their own."

The Education of Randy Gibson | 2012

Molly Sheridan interviews Randy Gibson for New Music Box

"Out of just intonation, sine waves, extended durations, and close collaborations, Gibson is building a vocabulary for his work that has carried him deeply into a particular sound world alongside a special group of performers who are up for the challenge. "

Circular Trance at the Avant Music Festival | 2012

Bruce Hodges reviews Circular Trance for Seen And Heard International

"I found the piece fascinating. Circular Trance is built on the vocalists' ability to produce pure harmonies that combine with the sine drone, creating a shimmering cloud of sound."