Roach, Steve

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2016
LTD 500
Evoking the stillpoint of now, this 2016 long-form piece was born in the spirit of INVISIBLE, BLOODMOON RISING and other soul tone zones of pure immersion, deep atmospherics and textural healing. After a long run of concerts and the wide range of dynamic releases over the past few years, the return to home gave birth to this place to be.
 

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2020 
Tomorrow's five deeply stirring transcendent electronic pieces draw from the stylistic mode Steve describes as "elegant futurism," cyclical melodic weavings flow and ebb in a graceful momentum infused with deep emotion. Tomorrow finds a rare balance between a feeling of floating and one of kinetic movement; this unexpected symmetry breathes life and energy into each piece. Equal parts serene floating space music and minimalist sequencer-based forms, Roach's journey to the center of our self is imbued with anticipation of what tomorrow might bring.

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2019    
Trance Archeology maps a dynamic topography of eight multidimensional interwoven pieces born from the pulse, breath and heartbeat of sonic archeology, tapping into a uniquely symbiotic relationship between rhythm and atmosphere. The elemental core alive in Trance Archeology transmits an experience born anew yet unearthed for the first time; simultaneously it connects the epochs of trance, ceremonial and sacred music expressed through the tools born of today’s technology.

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 1999 / 2010
This second Timeroom Editions release flows with a prime collection of lost pieces from the DREAMTIME RETURN period up to 1998. Some of the pieces have appeared on multi-artist samplers, while others have been gathered for this special release.
TRUTH & BEAUTY creates a connected story line, which seems to fit together like the soundtrack to an imaginary film. It already opens with "Aftermath", which comes from the Spanish version of "Stormwarning". I find that sequencer-driven album one of hist best but this piece is quieter. "The Majestic Void" we know from the "KLEM Elektronische Muziek 1994"-celebration of KLEM's 15th year of existence. A typical Roach-rhythmical track. The next three pieces come from the "Earth Island"-period. The third, "Fate Awaits" (with Suso Saiz) sounds just like the instrumental music of David Sylvian. The best number in my opinion is "Beyond The Blood" from the days of "Artifacts" (1994) with a strong ongoing melody. "The Unreachable Place (Again)" comes from the great times of "Dreamtime Return" and breathes the same warm atmosphere. Some of the other tracks were released earlier on compilation-albums such as the lovely quiet closing-track "This And The Other" from "Soundscape Gallery Series One".

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2015 
This zone was inspired by plans to perform at the Los Angeles Center Studios’ Vortex Dome in 2013. Entering this space created an immediate immersive experience, even with no music or visual stimulation. Vortex Immersion Zone was born from this geodesic, womb-like space in the same way a natural environment or magnificent cathedral inspires an artist to explore new places within. Over the course of time, portions of this immersion atmosphere appeared in concerts which in turn would help to magnify how I was hearing-seeing into this piece. The potency and allure of this sonic space directed me to shape and shift the experience into a new depth as it was completed in late 2015.

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2022
WHAT REMAINS is a dynamic confluence of sonic worlds — four interconnected passages that venture from analog-sequencer driven elegant futurism, to yearning and mysterious tribal ambient, to conclude with the heart-wrenching, pure-atmospherics of the title track. This sonic odyssey reveals a masterful culmination of the different electronic musics Roach has developed and explored over the last forty years.  Deep emotion, soulful longing and vast interweaves of sonic epiphanies of grace and beauty are immersed and nourished in a balance of darkness and light. The four distinct — yet allied — movements progress as one stylist space opens to the next, each emerging from the resonance of the previous piece.

WHAT REMAINS is a powerful meditation upon Steve's journey of one. "As I grow deeper into time," Steve reflects, "my devotion to deeply engaging in this creative life progressively increases the potency to burn away that which is no longer needed. The shedding of old skins, patterns and perceptions have to be examined. What remains infuses the art with this essence. This transcendental state inherently evolves as one is tempered through the priorities of time. There are no boundaries around what I do. I venture to the place I feel in my imagination or discover while creating the music; it is how it wants to unfold. I desire to keep pushing further and deeper into places that are connected to what I've done while also pushing me into new worlds to explore. As an artist, I use these instruments with the agility to move between a lot of dynamic soundworlds. Like an actor, I inhabit different roles and disappear into them. That creative experience embodies all these incredible emotional, spiritual and psychological spaces as a daily meditation upon what remains vital."

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 1992
Influences from Tibetan ceremonial music, with a fusion of deep space music. The double-CD WORLD'S EDGE was Steve's first solo project created after his move to Tucson in 1990. At last the inspirations that fueled his music for years were right outside the studio, helping to feed an especially intense creative period. It is one that Steve looks back on as an important period of transition and discovery within the onion-skin-like evolution of his work. The roots of ORIGINS, ARTIFACTS, THE MAGNIFICENT VOID, and ON THIS PLANET are clearly present here, as well as the transition from the benchmark DREAMTIME RETURN.
Disc two contains an often-overlooked hour-long piece, "To the Threshold Of Silence". This composition shows significant influences from Tibetan ceremonial music, with a fusion of deep space music, melding perfectly into Steve's landscapes of time-stretching textures. Added to this foundation is harmonic singing, processed gongs,Tibetan bells, and deep Earth pulses, all combined to created a kind of ancient-modern sacred space.
This groundbreaking long-form piece foreshadowed THE DREAM CIRCLE, SLOW HEAT, ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS and PRAYERS TO THE PROTECTOR. This rediscovery will delight both old listeners and those newly-experiencing Steve's vast musical journey.

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2022
In a masterful expression of subtle, potent ambient-electronic minimalism, Steve Roach’s newest release activates an internal opening of the mythic imagination. The slowly unfolding interweave of zones, drones and atmospheres displays compelling, deeply evocative textural pieces with an interconnected sense of mystery, awe and wonder. The gently engulfing interplay between the album’s pieces provides contrasts of shadow and light, shimmering beauty and alluring soundscapes stretched into infinity. The revealing of the music unfolds into stately sonic formations of hypnotic weavings, hazy atmospheric swirls and murmuring reverberations. Roach establishes each soundworld through engaging a multitude of techniques and hardware-based instruments with fluidity and grace. Manifesting from the essential foundational DNA of ambient music, this is an album of elegant, deeply nuanced audio alchemy. The expansive minimalism reveals a shadowy and emotional spaciousness that meditates on the enduring essence and power of sound and our place in the center of it.

Artist: Steve Roch, Suso Saiz, Jorge Reyes
P: 1994
The second chapter in the Suspended Memories story. Recorded between concert dates in Spain and Germany. This recording presents a more complex and layered sound due to the studio conditions the group found themselves in. A "Next World" sound is further explored. Prehispanic and Mexican shamanic influences merge with more urgent rhythms while the guitar and synths create the expansive fabric on which it all sits. Winner of the NAIRD Independent Release of the Year, 1993.

Artist: Steve Roch, Suso Saiz, Jorge Reyes
P: 1993
The music rises up from the darkness and howls at the moon. An ancient voice chants in serpentine ecstacy, only to subside and hover next to silence. In those moments when the sound dissolves beyond recognition, the subconscious leaks through, whispering of faded visions painted on stone, of memories suspended by the passage of time, of gods long forgotten. This is the world where Steve Roach, Jorge Reyes and Suso Saiz create their music. There are no scores, no plans, in the initial stages of composition. Like jazz artists who extemporize freely through a shared musical language, the members of Suspended Memories connect on an intuitive level of pure sound. But it isn't jazz they're playing. Roach, Reyes, and Saiz practice a form of collective improvisation from another time, another place, maybe one that never really existed before, except in the shrouded landscapes of a shaman's dream.