''Somnium'' (2001) is an album by the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the " United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, ...

ambient Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to: Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds * Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere * ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby * ...

musician Robert Rich. It is a seven-hour album on a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

-video that was partly inspired by Rich's sleep concert series of the early 1980s and mid 1990s. Like those concerts, the music on this album was composed to influence the dreams and pre- REM

hypnagogic Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the ''hypnagogic'' state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Its opposite state is described as the transitional state from sleep into wakefulness. Mental ...

visions of the listener. For this purpose it is suggested that the volume be kept down to the threshold of perceptibility, ideally with speakers surrounding the listener's bed. Rich also recommends this album for conventional listening. For a brief period at the beginning of the album there is a slightly more active texture while the listener adjusts the volume and settles down to sleep. As the music progresses it slowly drifts through a variety of electronic drones as well as acoustic source material and nature recordings. The third and final track gradually fades into a morning atmosphere filled with bird songs. In order to allow for the album's seven-hour length it was released on the DVD-video format instead of

DVD-Audio DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The st ...

. Rich also wanted to avoid the digital artifacts caused by

compression Compression may refer to: Physical science *Compression (physics), size reduction due to forces *Compression member, a structural element such as a column *Compressibility, susceptibility to compression *Gas compression *Compression ratio, of a c ...

. To achieve this the frames of video that a DVD player uses to navigate inside a chapter were not included. In spite of this, the second track had to be compressed using

Dolby Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (often shortened to Dolby Labs and known simply as Dolby) is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to ...

AC-3 encoding in order to maintain the album's length. It has been estimated that this is the longest single piece of music ever committed to a commercially recorded format, until that record was broken by the release of the 24-hour-long "

7 Skies H3 "7 Skies H3" is a composition by American experimental rock band The Flaming Lips, released on October 31, 2011. Info "7 Skies H3" is a single, 24-hour-long song contained in an EP, ''24 Hour Song Skull''. Although compiled as a contiguous, day- ...

" by psychedelic rock group

The Flaming Lips The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, vocals), Derek Brown (ke ...

. However, "7 Skies H3" was not released commercially. Instead, Robert Rich himself released a follow-up on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of s ...

in 2014, ''Perpetual'', including an 8-hour piece of the same name plus a re-issue of ''Somnium'' in full length.

Track listing

#"Part 1" – 155:00 (2:35:00) #"Part 2" – 119:57 (1:59:57) #"Part 3" – 144:54 (2:24:54)

References

External links

Album feature from Robert Rich's official Web site
{{Authority control Robert Rich (musician) albums 2001 albums Hypnos Records albums Relapse Records albums Ambient albums by American artists