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."

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."

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."

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."

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."

Top Ten in Textura | 2011

Aqua Madora selected as a top ten release of 2011

"Not many recordings include a credit for the piano tuner, but in the case of Randy Gibson's Aqua Madora, it seems entirely appropriate..."

Aqua Madora Released | 2011

Christian Carey reviews Aqua Madora for Sequenza 21

"An aside: I wasn't the only one in the house to be floored by the piece. Our tabby cat, Happy, comes running every time I put it on, and blisses out between the speakers."

Aqua Madora reviewed in Textura

"Appropriate to the title's water allusion, the reverberations produced by the piano's sustain creates an impression of fluidity between the notes played, as if they possess a liquidy dimension that allows them to flow into one another."

The Third Pillar reviewed in London | 2010

Scott McMillan reviews a live performance for The Liminal

"a moment of relative calm, of stillness, and of pleasingly soporific and mind-emptying purity... This was no fast forward, just a long, slow slide into nothingness."

Analog Apparitions Released | 2010

Aquarius goes deep

"two half hour epic swaths of deeeeeep rage like dronemusic, the sound constantly evolving and mutating and subtly shifting, from ethereal hazy shimmer to thick reverberating metallic buzz, a gorgeously expansive dronescape"

Boomkat issues a heavy machinery warning

"these compositions are concerned with the just-intonation and "purity of sine waves in complex prime-harmonic relationships" which sounds incredibly intimidating, but is actually quite beautiful, if you've ever succumbed to the work of La Monte Young, or felt your chakras quivering while listening to the likes of Eleh. The experience is ritualistic and enveloping and shouldn't be undertaken while operating heavy machinery."