Pinkcourtesyphone – Description of Problem

Richard Chartier – composer, sound artist, designer, LINE label curator – has released over 30 critically acclaimed albums under his own name since 1998, building himself an unrivaled status in the ‘reductionist’ electronic sound art field.

As Pinkcourtesyphone, he has released released music since 2012 with a somewhat different angle – the alias giving him some space for a slightly ‘looser’ approach:

“Pinkcourtesyphone is a more emotional, dare one say musical side of his work.
Pinkcourtesyphone is dark but not arch, with a slight hint of humor.
Pinkcourtesyphone is amorphous, changing, and slipping in and out of consciousness.
Pinkcourtesyphone operates like a syrup-y dream and strives to be both elegant and detached.”

Richard Chartier; Pleq+Philippe Lamy; Pjusk+Sleep Orchestra; Thomas Tilly

RICHARD CHARTIER – SUBSEQUENT MATERIALS (2006 – 2012)
Where most releases nowadays are focussed on a physical release on a vinyl album and thus do not cross the 40 minute mark, Richard Chartier chooses a different approach and squeezes the most out of the possibilities of a digital release: Subsequent Materials (2006 – 2012) offers no less than three hours of his characteristic electronic music.

William Basinski and Richard Chartier


Aurora Liminalis cover

With about 60 releases since 2000, the LINE (L-NE) IMPRINT label has built a firm reputation as “a programmatic sound platform with a strong inclination towards the visual arts and multimedia, born from the desire to take the tactile qualities of audio installations from the gallery space to listeners’ living rooms.”

Curated by Richard Chartier, LINE not only releases impressive sound art CD’s, but also DVD’s and Artwork Prints.

With its focus on audio/multimedia installations, mostly electronic by nature, LINE aims at the more ‘serious’ –  investigative – listener: this is definitely no ‘pop-ambient’ label. If you insist on comparisions, the label may be best compared to Raster-Noton, in style and artistic approach.  

At the start of 2013, LINE announced an impressive series of new releases, of which the new collaboration by William Basinski and Richard Chartier may obtain the most attention.
But in fact, the other releases deserve your attention as much. I’ve combined the four latest releases in these two posts, demonstrating the versatile output of the LINE label.