The remarkable story of Robert Rich and the Sleep Concerts

From FACT Magazine:

Anyone familiar with Ambient music will, more than once, have chanced upon Robert Rich. The California native has released a string of highly-regarded releases, from 1989′s Rainforest through 1991′s meticulous Geometry to 1998′s East-facing Seven Veils. Similarly, collaborations with the likes of Lustmord (on 1995′s dark ambient touchstone Stalker) and Steve Roach (on 1990′s Strata and 1992′s Soma) have become set texts for listeners dipping a toe into Ambient cool blue waters. If there’s one thing he’ll forever be remembered for, though, it’s his legendary early 1980s ‘sleep concerts’ – immersive all-night shows, performed to sleeping audiences, that stretched the definition of a ‘concert’ beyond all familiar limits. Much-mythologised and occasionally imitated – Steven Stapleton is among the artist to have followed Rich’s cue – these occasional, sparsely attended happenings continue to fascinate and inspire – part physical experience, part community intervention, part scientific experiment, part mystic ritual.