01 Chinese Legend (11:21)
02 From Hills Of Snow (21:27)
03 Porcelain Nights (30:23)

There is without doubt method to the barely restrained madness that frequently surfaces in the music of Michael Robinson, a Beverly Hills resident who recently had his music improvised by none other than Ray Manzarek at LA's Jazz Bakery.

At times the music drifts along with a minimum of fuss only to be plucked from the tranquil stream bed and twisted in front of your ears into something very different. From out of nowhere a resounding tabla and accompanying Indian percussion will leap from the undergrowth and embellish the increasingly erratic piano lines that only seconds earlier were wandering aimlessly.

There are also extremely interesting divisions between the hand played parts and the obviously heavily sequenced ones, usually without any indication that one has taken over from the other. Either the lead parts are recorded very very slowly and quantized or Michael is leaving sections for the cut and paste.

Who knows? The main thing is that his music is a definite grower. I've listened to the whole album several times at different times of the day and found myself increasingly drawn to the random creativity that creates spaces that are quite unique to this composer.

In closing the presentation of the CD's we received for our listening pleasure were packaged quite delightfully with covers comprising of single sheets of Japanese hand silk screened rice paper and a direct to disk recording autographed by Michael himself.

Before I even placed it on the platter I just knew I'd love it.

Rating - 921,233 (out of a possible 1,000,000)

- electronicmusic.com 1997

Built primarily around Eastern instrumentation and percussion, the four works on Rainbow Thunder are very much "big picture" works. Those looking for traditional song structure or three-minute verse/chorus/verse sonic narrative should look elsewhere. The title track matches intricate polynational percussion with a trumpet that alternates between dirge-like maundering and, in the final minutes, African harp-backed agitation. "Forest Regions" is a slow, lingering work full of bell-like tones; it's extremely evocative, and paints a vivid sound-picture of the distant, alien stillness of the titular location. "Gopura" is a quiet, brooding piece in which an altered piano asserts itself over sustained tabla and tanpura textures. "The Angel Of Ankara", my favorite, is a 25-minute epic of Indian instrumentalism in which oud, tabla and others create a slow, elegant, powerful sonic texture in which they play little, melodic cat-and mouse games. I thoroughly recommend Rainbow Thunder to anyone who wants to broaden a horizon or two.

- Splendid e-zine 1997

Michael Robinson has released a new CD titled Hamoa. This release represents a very new and different direction for Robinson, whose earlier releases include Fire Monkey and Trembling Flowers. Using new equipment has opened up totally new musical vistas. This compliments his study of Hindustani music with teacher and tabla player Harihar Rao. The impact of North Indian music is ubiquitous on Hamoa. But by moving out into worldly influences, Robinson also leaves the door open for Near Eastern, African, East Asian, Australian, and other influences to seep into his music. This, the curious tunings used, and Robinson's particular ability to use mechanical sounds musically makes for a listening experience that is at once dreamy and astringent, beautiful and a tad disorienting.

- Keyboard 1996

Michael Robinson is a composer of the modern age. Unlike composers of yesteryear, the Beverly Hills resident uses high-tech equipment to create his music. Since 1985, he has written compositions exclusively for the computer, and it has produced some rather unusual sounds. Robinson composes music with traditional notations on paper before it is translated and encoded into the computer. From there the sound module (a synthesizer without a keyboard) generates synthesized sounds through two speakers. It can simultaneously produce 32 voices, or lines, in eight timbres. "The computer is the vehicle for which the music travels through," the New York native said. "It brings out parts of our experiences better than traditional music because it's a limitless media." Robinson discovered an interest in music as a high school student playing the saxophone. He earned a bachelor's degree in music at the State University of New York at Potsdam and took classes from musical greats such as Leonard Bernstein at The Tanglewood Music Center in western Massachusetts. For several years he wrote string quartets and other musical compositions, yet he felt something was missing from his music and sought to make a change. "I wasn't achieving the results that I wanted with composition or saxophone improvisation", he said. "It was also very difficult to have my compositions performed properly, and as a performer you can only play one instrument at a time. I gradually began experimenting with a computer/synthesizer." At 8 p.m. Thursday, Robinson will perform a concert at Saint Augustine-By-The-Sea Church in Santa Monica. The performance will feature recent compositions, including the world premiere of the three-movement pieceFirst Instrument.

- Los Angeles Times 1993

Sounds of music coming from the auditorium fill the cool night air. The bass of the drum and the ring of the bells fuse to form a vibrant melody. The air quivers as the volume increases and captures the audience with its intensity. The effect is startling and one cannot help but gasp. The ingenious composition comes to an end and the composer takes a bow. He gestures towards the orchestra - a computer screen and a single keyboard. Composer Michael Robinson performs his computer-synthesized music live and on radio broadcasts across the country, and on Saturday he will bring his music to Occidental. The New York native has studied at Tanglewood Music Center, CalArts and earned a BM in music composition at the State University of New York at Potsdam and Stony Brook. Robinson has been awarded the Louis Armstrong Award for his saxophone improvisations.

- The Occidental (Occidental College) 1994

Michael Robinson recently released his third CD, Hamoa. Robinson is one of those independent composers who works without any institutional support or any other visible outside support. He has been quite successful attracting the attention of the press and he certainly finds numerous opportunities to present public concerts. Robinson prides himself with using technology with both sophistication and simplicity. All of his works are considered to be live performance pieces. His instrument consists of a computer and one synthesizer. In today's technology world, Robinson uses the most basic of systems. Robinson's newest offering has moved in a significantly different direction from his previous CDs, Trembling Flowers and Fire Monkey. It seems that in the past couple of years Robinson has immersed himself in world music. He has seriously studied music from other cultures, especially that of India. He has become especially interested in various tuning systems, non-Western timbres, and complex rhythms. All of that is reflected in the new CD. The world theme is even reflected in the colorful text-less cover that is a Japanese hand silk screen on rice paper. The theme continues with the titles. Eight of the nine works are from 1996. The ninth piece, Welsh Witch, dates from 1986. There is a similarity of approaches in all the works. Robinson's basic approach is to establish rhythmic ostinatos and drones, and then introduce microtonal melodic material performed on ethnic-like instruments. All the works share this technique in varying degrees, with different treatments of all three elements. The first offering Water Stones, introduces a balafon melody over a tanpura drone combined with a background of Indian bells. The melodic material here, and in most of the works, is presented as if it were improvised. Maintaining the same timbres for much of the first half, Robinson utilizes subtle dynamic contrasts. Eventually, more traditional drummed wooden and skin timbres are introduced with through- composed rhythms. Next comes the title piece, Hamoa. Here the rhythmic ostinatos are more intense and the drones emanate from gongs. A piano using a Japanese tuning performs an improvised-like melodic line throughout. In the middle section the gongs are replaced by altered tablas. For the last third of the piece, a slow moving pattern comprised of Australian instrumental timbres is used to accompany the piano. Chinese Berries follows. It features a sitar accompanied by a wide range of string and wind instruments. The first three works are all slightly over ten minutes. We are now offered a six minute piece called Giant Leaves. After a poly-rhythmic introduction, an exotic flute enters using a traditional American blues tuning. The flute is followed by an esraj and finally a hichiriki. Pink Jade, just under four minutes, presents variations on a rhythmic cycle of five beats performed by Japanese and South American percussion instruments. The melodic voice here is the biwa. The piece contrasts nicely with the next work, Red Painting, named for the Ad Reinhardt painting which inspired the work. Just under ten minutes long, the Korean piri is featured using a Tibetan tuning and accompanied by a digeridoo and Near Eastern percussion. The next five minute piece, Moonlit Palms, deviates from this three layered texture. Robinson introduces this piece with Western trumpet, clarinet, flute and piano playing contrapuntal textures with yet a different Japanese tuning. This section is followed by a 17 1/2 beat rhythmic cycle supporting a percussive synthesizer timbre followed by an African harp. The piece ends with a strictly percussive passage, one of the strongest moments of the whole CD. In African Moon, Robinson introduces new instruments with some interesting results. The last piece, Welsh Witch, is the only work from an earlier period. As mentioned earlier, this work was composed in 1986. I am fairly certain that Robinson created this work before he began his serious investigation of world music. Yet, many of the same qualities are still found here. The piece was originally composed for a mono-timbral pre-midi computer music system and it has been redone using exotic percussion and altered muted electric guitars. The texture is extremely contrapuntal after beginning with playful and church-like chords. Especially effective in this piece is the use of silences. Robinson has given us a nice musical gift. There are some wonderful moments here combining the world music tradition with high technology. Yet, Robinson always keeps his technology and his music accessible. This new direction for Robinson promises to lead him into even more interesting areas.

- Journal SEAMUS 1996

Once upon a time, composers would sit at their pianos, pen in hand, and plot out the lines for a sonata or a symphony or even an opera. Not anymore. Enter the computer age. Now composers ponder complex programs and myriad electronic variables in their search for new sonic constructions. Michael Robinson is a composer of computer-generated music. And at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Santa Monica's Saint Augustine-By-The-Sea Church, he will offer a recital of his most recent compositions. "I like to use the computer like a high-tech player piano, and I compose for that type of presentation," Robinson explains. "In my performances, theatricality is really secondary, although I am on the stage with the computers and the various sound modules. I rely on the computer to control the performance, but in a such a way that the music will come alive and engage the audience." One of the key elements of Robinson's composing is a Roland sound module, which is essentially a powerful synthesizer without a keyboard. This multidimensional sound-generating unit incorporates sampled (modulated sounds originally from a live source) with synthesized (electronically derived) sounds. It is capable of simultaneously creating 32 voices, or lines, in eight timbres. With all that equipment, how do you establish compositional perimeters? "That is a problem, because accumulating too much equipment actually offers too many choices," Robinson says. "I find it important to sometimes limit my palette so that the audience realizes that the music is coming from the composer and not from the computer." A CD of Robinson's music, Trembling Flowers, is currently available on Azure Miles Records. Robinson's concert will feature recent compositions, including the world premiere of a four-movement piece titled "Ocean."

- The Outlook (Santa Monica) 1992

West Maui residents and guests are in for a unique experience this month, when composer/performer Michael Robinson presents two free concerts of his innovative musical compositions in Lahaina. The two performances at Malu-ulu-olele Cultural Center (West Maui Cultural Center) will feature 15 of his most recent compositions written on Maui, as well as some of his earlier pieces. Presented as part of "Friday Night is Art Night" in Lahaina, the "Music From the Sun" concerts will be held in January 12 and 26 starting at 7:30 p.m. Robinson uses an array of computers and synthesizers to create music that defies categorization. Quite different from most "computer music", "New Age music" or "synthesizer music", his style uses elements drawn from German/Austrian, North Indian, African, jazz, and rock music, to create an entirely new genre of music. For Robinson, "computer synthesizers are a sensitive medium for exploring a wide open area between the physical and metaphysical worlds which sometimes seems rather unique to music. Their expressive qualities have something of the "benign indifference of the universe," he said. "I just like the way they sound." Although Robinson uses elements derived from many musical styles, he does not create within any particular format. The pieces range in duration from a few minutes to nearly an hour: all are strictly instrumental. Each composition is a new experience of the possibilities of creation with sound. Since Robinson does not compose using any set of rules as to what constitutes a composition, each piece provides a fresh look at what can be created using an aural medium. With synthesizers, the sounds of various types of musical instruments from cultures around the world may be reproduced. Robinson is one of the individuals currently using the resources of technology and information to create sound combinations which stretch the boundaries of the definition of music. Like the innovators of the past, he leaves behind all previously created forms and has produced something truly fresh and exciting. A prolific composer, Robinson has completed over 155 compositions for computer synthesizers in an extraordinary range of moods and styles. During his early years, Robinson trained under some of the best. A native of New York City, he studied improvisation and saxophone with Lee Konitz, Phil Woods and Ken McIntyre. He took classes from such musical greats as Leonard Bernstein at The Tanglewood Music Center and studied composition with Leonard Stein, Mel Powell and Morton Subotnick at CalArts. Robinson also had important informal consultations with Morton Feldman, Steve Reich and John Cage. Starting in 1985, Robinson began to present his computer synthesizer compositions in solo concerts in New York at places, such as La Mama La Galleria, Saint Peter's Church and Hunter College. He also presented his compositions on live radio broadcasts, on WNYC FM, WKCR FM, and WBAI FM. This past summer, after moving to Maui, Robinson gave 3 solo concerts at Saint John's Church in Kula. For the holiday season, he presented a three-part series of performances at Seabury Hall, titled "Charcoal Notes", during December. Contributions from the Lahaina concerts will be donated to the West Maui Cultural Council.

- Lahaina News 1990

The first time I heard Michael Robinson's music, it seemed almost too minimal: a single horn-like whistle sounding several times, then a baritone foghorn in 5/4, followed by a repeated 2/4 figure entering inside of that, with a melodic line in 7/4 joining in on top. And through all these rhythmic figures a certain spare, crystalline iciness prevailed. "I'm not interested in making my music sound like it comes from live musicians," Robinson explains. "Quite frankly, I'm tired of the gestures used by human musicians; these gestures are just too ego-driven. Rather, I'm interested in discovering and liberating the expressive quality - the essence - of computer-controlled music. I want this music to emanate from the computer in the same way other sounds emanate in nature, like wind and water." It's an ambitious goal, one that places special demands on the listener. Robinson's sense of timing, phrasing, form, and flow guide listeners toward his alternative vision. His music has the clarity and ingenuousness of Chinese brush painting, some of the hard geometric edginess of Kandinsky, and a detached, ethereal, and abstract quality that nonetheless seems bound to the tight forms found in some abstract Expressionist paintings. "When I lived in New York," he reports, "I saw a painting by Ad Reinhardt, and it inspired me to make music in a different way. It was a watershed artistic experience."

- Keyboard 1991

Michael Robinson: Fire Monkey (Azure Miles) Live performance is the focus of this new guy from L A, and his music generates tremendous energy by spewing out Nancarrovian reams of notes. No one-track mind, he'll play a melodic figure and in the next moment rip through atonal arpeggios or exotic drumbeats at breakneck speed. He writes tonally and atonally at once with refreshing naivete, and is much taken with Asian timbres. Jade Streams and Ghosts are drone meditations, March Wind and Fire Monkey are whirlwinds, and the magna opera, Year of the Rooster and Mountain Temple, are his schizo counterpoint pieces that, on repeated listening, I like best of all. No telling where he's going to spin off to, but he's an original.

- Village Voice 1994

The influences Robinson cited ranged from the Doors through John Coltrane to Morton Feldman, all of which could be heard in his most distinctive music. Robinson relies on additive motific layers, ostinatos and absolute clarity of texture in his work, expressed through computer-controlled synthesized sounds. The chief exception to the dominance of pulse and linearity was Delayed Response. Inspired by Feldman's String Quartet, it presents a slowly shifting harmonic pattern, conveyed in lush orchestral synth washes.

- Los Angeles Times 1991

In Trembling Flowers and Smokestack, he found considerable energy in a welter of timbres and textures. In Pink Candle, he began with the riff that opens the Door's Back Door Man, and added layers of percussion counterpoint, making for an unusual variation set. Gift worked similarly, if more melodically.

- The New York Times 1990

Robinson is following an iconoclastic path much like Schoenberg and Cage before him. Educated at the Tanglewood Music Center, the State University of New York at Potsdam and Stony Brook and CalArts, he has a keen sense of modern compositional techniques. The poly-tonal and poly-rhythmic Mountain Temple demonstrated a wide range of influences from avant garde jazz to Japanese drumming.

- Gardena Valley News 1992

Sitting in front of his keyboard and computer screen, Michael Robinson searches for the right words to explain just how he does what he does. "I used to write for traditional instrumentalists, but felt the need to leave that behind," he said. "It was as though the live performers were getting in the way of the music." He acknowledges that some find this viewpoint controversial. "People come to a concert and expect to see musicians," he said. "I feel like that is no longer a really relevant way of making music for myself. The challenge for myself is to compose computer/synthesizer music that comes to life at the time of the performance using the advantages and limitations of the medium." This juxtaposition of traditional versus new thought is evident both in Robinson's approach and his choice of venues. He has performed concerts around the country, but when he plays Westwood it's usually in a church, that most traditional of musical settings. How does he marry the two? "One nice thing about churches is that they have beautiful acoustics," he explained. "I can fill up and saturate the hall with sound." And quite a variety of sounds, indeed. Working with a Roland sound module, which is about the size and shape of an average VCR, but with dozens of buttons and flashing lights, Robinson pulls together instruments and sounds from around the globe to create complex, layered music. "I like to have variety in the music I compose," Robinson noted. "This instrument allows me the capability of playing instruments from around the world, with other types of scale tunings - it puts new colors at my disposal." Other music cultures use tunings far different from Western tuning, and focus entirely on melody and rhythm rather than harmony, he said. "The Korean oboe sounds like something from another planet," Robinson said. "And the Near Eastern violin has a grainy consistency in its sound." The creation of these sounds is fascinating to watch. Were the speakers to be turned off, it would look like Robinson was ard at work data-processing, typing away at a keyboard in front of a black-and-white computer monitor. Yet as he types, sound pours forth from speakers in a dazzling array of sounds and audio textures. In Giant Leaves, a composition on his new release Hamoa, the music has repeating themes at its base with different instrumental sounds layered over it, delivering a focus on melody rather than chords. The final effect is that of not so much a building and falling of music but a flow, odd but not discordant. The composer finds that there is a tendency for Western musicians and audiences to look down upon music that focuses on pure melody and rhythm without harmony as not being complicated enough and lacking in variety. For some this way of making music will be a developed taste with its own endless source of complexity and variety. "I like to create something that is just a melody, but is substantial enough to listen to for a long time," he continued. "It's simple, and there's no place to hide - I like that challenge." Robinson will be performing at UCLA's University Lutheran Chapel on February 25 at 8 p.m.

- Westwood News 1995

Michael Robinson's latest CD, Fire Monkey, distributed on Azure Miles Records, is beautifully packaged with positive quotes from the Los Angeles Times and Keyboard. Robinson is another of those hard working electro-acoustic music composers who work independently. He has no university affiliation and yet he has been quite successful in finding venues for public concerts. He has received considerable favorable publicity. As in his previous CD, Trembling Flowers, also available on Azure Miles Records, the works here are not studio pieces, but live performance compositions. Robinson views the computer as a live performance instrument and all of his works are realized in real time. He performs these pieces in concert and on the radio. Consequently, this offering is a record in the old fashion sense. We have here a record of his live performances. The eight presented pieces range from the three minute thirty-three second March Wind to the four-movement Mountain Temple (17 minutes, 56 seconds). Robinson's brief and lucid program notes present his philosophy of live performance and short statements about each work. Robinson usually works with a rather modest technology. He is very capable of generating complex music with minimal equipment. He has developed a rather individualistic approach to music making and is perfecting his own style. He obviously has been influenced by a number of sources, including music of various world cultures. Underlying much of his music are rhythmic ideas that resemble ethnic traditions outside the Western Hemisphere. The resulting effects are almost overwhelming March Wind consists of a continuous catharthis of timbres, rhythms, and motivic material. The three movement "Year of the Rooster" contrasts with this first work in that here Robinson's development is more gradual. Jade Streams borders on minimalism with slow moving lines weaving in and out of a sustained drone. Robinson follows this with Distant Breakers, a work filled with overlaid rapid rhythmic patterns. As in March Wind, the ideas come pouring out. Mountain Temple is a four-movement work inspired by Japanese silk-screen painting. Similar in conception to "Year of the Rooster", he has especially utilized some fine rhythmic passages and made excellent use of stereo panning. Beginning with simple plucked sounds, the work builds in timbral intensity as other voices are added or as the plucked voices are gradually replaced by percussive or reedy timbres in each succeeding movement, with the last movement becoming almost chaotic. Ghosts returns to a minimalistic approach with a slow moving melody juxtaposed onto a sustained tone cluster. Robinson follows this with Soft Stone, a really quite nice song reflecting a 1950's rock ballad style. Finally, Fire Monkey, the source of the CD's title, reflects back on March Wind. Robinson has created a CD that makes intelligent musical sense and can be considered a work in itself. Each piece contrasts nicely in terms of style and time. As a whole, the CD builds in musical interest and resolves quite nicely by ending much as it started. Robinson's work is rich in musical ideas. Fire Monkey is an interesting CD with plenty of fine musical ideas. Michael Robinson is a composer with a vision. I wish him luck with both his music and his vision. He is one of the many independent composers who deserves an audience.

- Journal SEAMUS 1994

Critic's Choices
Monday, August 19
Kala Ramnath and Ray Manzarek.

You already know about The Doors' keyboard player, and that group's jazz roots (You don't? Check out Manzarek's new spoken word CD, out shortly), so it's not surprising that he's trading musical intricacies with Ramnath, the North Indian violin virtuoso. They'll be improvising on a couple of Michael Robinson pieces, accompanied by Ajeet Pathak, one of India's foremost young tabla players at the Jazz Bakery.