Steve Roach - Return to the Dreamtime

This return presents expanded and evolved pieces from DREAMTIME RETURN, created live at the Galactic Center in Tucson Arizona on February 10, 2018. The premiere concert was broadcast live worldwide on the SomaFM Internet radio station. The recording was fine-tuned at The Timeroom by Steve and mastered by Howard Givens, presenting a studio-quality sonic experience empowered by the live moment.

Return to the Dreamtime... 30 years deeper...

Day and night for several months leading up to the concert, I traveled deep into the essence of where this music lives in my being. The process of immersing into the 30th-anniversary remastering of DREAMTIME RETURN inspired the desire to expand upon and present this music live for the first time since the early 90's.  The pragmatic work began with excavating the archived sounds, samples, and location recordings I created for this project in 1987 and '88. The sources were still cataloged and stored in my studio, having traveled with me though many moves and different Timeroom locations over the years. All of the essential sounds and samples were still in working order on 512KB floppy disks and 80's-era hard drives for the Emu samplers. The original analog synth patches have also lived continuously in my Oberheim Xpander. The technical side was just one part of the process in the reconnection to this pivotal time. The live-in-a-studio-like environment of Solar Culture's Galactic Center was essential in this recording; the energy of the packed in-house audience combined with the worldwide listeners tuning into SomaFM's live broadcast supercharged the atmosphere of the space and momentum into this moment. As these portals to the Dreamtime experience were opened, memories and tactile sensations of my time in Australia along with the epiphanies from then into now flooded my creative consciousness, placing me directly into this realm of a return within the Return.

-- Steve Roach, June 2018