Record Review: Charles Rivera — 'Housatonic Reflections'

With Housatonic Reflections, composer Charles Rivera employs a multitude of techniques in his quest to build dense and well-constructed textures. Opening with a chorus of repeating sounds — a pastiche of overlapping, echoed vocal samples — Rivera pivots into the bubbling “One More for SH.” Here, Rivera’s work recalls modern-era Brian Eno, featuring notes without any discernible origin or ultimate direction. The album shifts between jarring compositions and denser, sonically-challenging sound blankets that aurally embrace the listener. His is a world of macroscopic musings, broad philosophical sound collages meant to leave the audience in a renewed state.