more from
Going In
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Bone of Memory [Going In 004]

by Carl Ritger

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD  or more

     

1.

about

Presence. An echo, a memory, a ghost. What begins as a whisper and grows more dim from there but continues to linger. A pang that chimes, reverberates through the environment and then subsides, a through-line so subtle you think at times you may be done with it, you’ve reached the other side, but no: it swells again. Repeat. Processing grief as cyclical iterations, or perhaps a spiral.


“The Bone of Memory” – Carl Ritger’s new album for Going In and the first release under his given name – provides healing space, a backdrop against which to work things out. Written in a time of many ambient griefs whose pitches sometimes rise to sirens, the album marks a passage, one that is grounded in a deeply intimate aural symbolism that references generational trauma, family heritage, and the fleeting vestiges of youth.


The sound of bells bookend this composition, marking it as a sort of cleansing ritual. As time passes, we continue through this journey together – the piece grows quieter but more insistent upon balancing the contradiction of not forgetting while delving into the practice of letting go. A subtle yet constant recalibration. An integration of all the people we were in the past, who are still inside us as we move forward into emerging identities. This is healing: a slow evolution that grows upon and over itself, like waves in the shallows.


“The Bone of Memory” was recorded at the artist’s home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during Spring / Summer 2020, a year after his mother’s passing and during a time of collective reckoning as we found ourselves living in a pandemic police state. It also serves as a fitting elegy to his retired moniker of more than a decade, Radere, as it confronts a variety of themes relating to the mutable self.


Ritger’s work has often featured heavy use of the guitar, an instrument with which he holds deeply personal associations. That instrument appears throughout “The Bone of Memory” as well, along with a selection of synthesizers, electronics, and found percussion, though his new treatment of the instrument emanates from a lighter, more ethereal touch. All of the guitar sounds captured here originate from the same initial loop, which is increasingly dissected and folded back upon itself, as one finds oneself lost in a hallway of mirrors – fractured and friscalating.


This piece also features a collection of field recordings from the course of the artist’s travels in Japan and Saint Barthélemy, as well as the American cities of Philadelphia and Denver, two cities which he has at times called home. Water is a common subject of the artist’s microphone and its presence is felt throughout “The Bone of Memory,” as without it we would have no life. Loops weave through with the long tail of healing, like a comet, a recovery. By the time we reach the end an echo remains, a presence. Where do you go when you escape time?


This piece requires both active, focused listening and a passive openness. An understanding that sometimes quiet things are still howling in their own way. Like moving through a walking labyrinth, listening to “The Bone of Memory” slowly unwinds something in you. By the end you might emerge a little changed, possibly transformed.


——————


Carl Ritger is a performer, composer and sound artist living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His work spans the shadowy gulf between drone, noise, and musique concrète, blurring guitars, electronics and location recordings into densely textured sonic environments. His recordings have been published via many independent labels, including Great Circles, Full Spectrum, Moodgadget, basic_sounds, and Futuresequence.

credits

released June 30, 2020

Written, produced and performed by Carl Ritger
Mastered by Keith Fullerton Whitman
Art Direction by Loveland Studio of Design (L.S.D.)
Liner notes by Jesica Davis

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Carl Ritger Colorado

Carl Ritger [FKA Radere; b. 1984] is a composer and sound artist hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Currently living and working on Colorado’s Front Range, his work composites acoustic sound sources, electronics, and location recordings into densely textured sonic environments. ... more

contact / help

Contact Carl Ritger

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Carl Ritger, you may also like: