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With his distinctive melange of analogue and digital synthesisers, acoustic colours and highly imaginative soundscaping, Steve Roach is one of the most respected electro-acoustic ambient musicians in the world. He’s been noted for the deep inspiration he draws from the European electronic tradition, and you can certainly hear the influence of early German psychedelic electronica and spacemusic throughout his work - quite often not in melody, but certainly in its atmosphere and large, reverberant spaces. Early years The ambient electropop of his early albums Now/Traveler (1983) and Empetus (1986) - music in the vein of 80's Tangerine Dream - is neither distinctive nor particularly good. Far more effective is his first extensive foray into subdued electronic ambience, the classic Structures From Silence. It's mysterious, graceful and beautifully understated and one of the very finest meditative records of the 1980's, appearing at a time when much American synthesiser music was selling out to the spiritless, saccharine strains of new age. The three tracks on the album are all extraordinary delicate and the melodic strains of the 30-minute title track shift and sway with exquisite gentleness. Decades on, Structures From Silence remains his finest example of tonal, harmonic ambient music. Quiet Music, although never quite reaching the sublime heights of Structures For Silence, is also a must-have. It compiles tracks from three cassette-only releases, music which Roach describes on the sleeve notes as "created in respect for silence". Although it was specifically commissioned by outside sources for relaxation, healing and clinical use, the quality of the music remains mostly uncompromised by this potentially limiting new age premise. Classic environmental ambience On the next few albums Roach turns his attention to landscapes. The classic Western Spaces is a collaboration with two other well-regarded synthesists of the 80's - Kevin Braheny and Richard Burmer. Inspired by the desert wilderness of America’s south-west, these superb electro-acoustic nature paintings are as compelling and genuinely beautiful examples of environmental music as you’ll hear anywhere. Desert Solitaire, this time with Michael Stearns replacing Richard Burmer as co-collaborator, is a bit less tonal and accessible though still a fine work. Tracks like “Cloud Of Promise” exude a graceful, subtle grandeur equal to anything on Western Spaces, while the doomy “Shiprock” is considerably darker than anything on its predecessor, a pointer towards things to come. Dreamtime Return is magnificent, an epic work based on Roach’s travels around Australia and his experience with its wilderness and Aboriginal culture, something that has profoundly influenced his music ever since. The album’s combination of tribal percussion, warm washes of synthesiser and location recordings of Aboriginal music is ambitious yet restrained, subtle yet stimulating. U.S. music magazine Heartbeats was suitably impressed: “This monumental magnum opus by Roach demonstrates that electronic music’s greatest potential may lie in bringing our most elusive dreams and ancient memories into focus through potent, highly imaginative soundscapes.” Likewise Australia: Sound Of The Earth is a collaboration with Australians David Hudson and Sarah Hopkins on which Roach travels further into the musical territory of Dreamtime Return. Hudson’s marvelous didgeridoo playing is prominent, blending beautifully with Hopkin’s sublime whirly wind instruments and Roach’s now-trademark electronic sound sculptures. Into the void During the 1980's Steve Roach's ambient albums were modest in number but consistently high in quality. The 1990's and beyond are a different story. The composer's work rate since then has increased enormously, producing a huge number of solo and collaborative works over the decades since Sound Of The Earth. Their appeal varies greatly. The most difficult of these tend to be works centred around themes of paleontology, tribal shamanism and the primordial mind. Themes all worthy in themelves, except that many of these albums including Origins (1993), The Magnificent Void (1996), Early Man (2001) and Innerzone (2002) retreat into dark worlds of dissonance and strangeness where tonality is virtually outlawed, greatly narrowing their appeal. The sound is one or a combination of rhythmic tribal patterns, widescreen atonal soundscapes and massive reverberating spaces. While some hardcore fans swear by such works, like most of his dark atonal ambient I wouldn't rate these or albums like them as essential. If you're a newcomer to his music, forget it. Indeed, discernable chords and melodic lines are largely absent from Roach's 90's music. ...and back again Post-2000, his discography has become more varied again. In between the ongoing dissonance, dischordant structures and almost freeform avant-garde experiments he is once again embracing warmer and more tonal sounds and in doing so has recorded some of his finest albums. The subtle melodic strength of Midnight Moon comes from electric guitar lines which are processed extensively and spread across gently reverberating soundscapes. It's one of several albums on which Roach experimented with guitar in this manner and it's an excellent deep, beatless ambient excursion, perfect late-night chillout music. For the first time in many years Life Sequence from 2003 finds the composer revisiting the propulsive analogue sequencer melodies of some of his early, Berlin-school inspired work. It's a triumph, largely because instead of settling for pure nostalgia Roach has reinvented this sound using the technological prowess he's gained over the decades since, adding both harmonic depth and atmospheric richness to the music. Proof Positive is cut from the same cloth as Life Sequence and is as equally engaging. Also similar in flavour but very different in structure is the epic Destination Beyond from 2009. Over a single 73 minute track the album sighs and surges beautifully with spinning melodies, rich sweeping chords and his trademark airy atmospheres. Recorded live in the studio, Destination Beyond gives you a taste of Roach's live concerts in which he blends improvisation and programmed elements with tremendous skill. Meanwhile, two collaborative albums from the 2000's, Mantram and Nada Terma, offer some of the most sweetly intoxicating music he's ever put his name to. The trio of Roach, American Byron Metcalf with Germany's Mark Seelig fashion rich Eastern-flavoured drone ambience with Indian tamboura, Tibetan throat singing, deep synth chords and the slow pulse of a flame drum, embellished with some flute and traditional stringed instruments. Roach's superb sound design sets the music above and beyond many similarly themed recordings in the genre. It's quietly exhilarating stuff that compares favourably to the Eastern-tinged ambient masterpieces of David Parsons and Robert Rich. Four decades on Heralding Roach's forth decade as a recording artist, the deeply ravishing Sigh Of Ages from 2010 is performed largely with analogue synths and finds Roach looking back - as the title suggests - without simply recycling ideas. With its haunting harmonic progression "Quelling Place" enfolds you in a warm embrace that's as satisfying as anything on Structures For Silence or Dreamtime Return. "The View From Here" is Berlin-school ambient trance with the lightest possible touch and is exquisitely beautiful. Much of the rest is lush, tonal landscaping that's warm while still occasionally ambiguous, and imbued with a deep sense of space and wonder. The following year's The Road Eternal with seasoned Norwegian composer Erik Wollo is quite different and yet another highpoint in Roach's catalogue. It's something of a showcase for the subtle rhythmic complexity possible in sequencer-based music, its percussion patterns being more intricate and intriguing then typical old-school Berlin ambient trance, despite the clear lineage. The widescreen harmonies are deep, warm and rich; Wollo's synthesised guitar phrasing on tracks like "The Next Place" and "Travel By Moonlight" is especially tender and haunting. It's an excellent release, a sign that after four decades of recording Steve Roach's well of inspiration remains as deep as ever. |
