Roach, Steve

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 1983    
QUIET MUSIC is a collection of pieces cerated in respect for silence between 1983 and 1986.
Besides its obvious relaxing qualities - much of this type of music is relaxing - there is also something ethereal and earthy about most of his work, especially that of late where he is experimenting with Native American/southwestern rhythms. Quiet Music is really no exception.
The blurb on the back cover reads "Like a shimmering mirage on the desert, this subtle music reflects your own images, evoking shades of mood and meaning." I really couldn't put it better myself. There are tracks here are so subtle that on the one hand they almost stand still - like one moment is captured, and yet convey a sense of movement. Of, well, drifting sands and floating clouds. It is at once relaxing and intriguing, wondering where the next note leads - the next dune leads, perhaps. I would imagine that for anyone who spends a great deal of their time in the city, this music may not mean much to them. Except for the wee hours of the morning, and maybe not even then, there isn't much complete silence to explore. For those who spend time in the "great wide open," this will resonate with them.
This album evokes the sound, mood, and feel of silence. One person alone with elements, at one with the universe, so to speak. And while that sounds like "New Age mumbo-jumbo," it really isn't intended to be. We should, however, spend more time reflecting upon ourselves, discovering who we are, what makes us the unique individual we are. When you do that, you can appreciate more the things around you.
However, if you were in total silence, you wouldn't be able to listen to this album, now would you?

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 1983 / 2011
For the first time ever, the meditative, ambient minimalism of the QUIET MUSIC series is available in its entirety in a 3-CD digi-pak release. Originally released in the mid-'80s on cassette and later in a truncated 2-CD edition, QUIET MUSIC: THE ORIGINAL 3-HOUR COLLECTION presents this landmark album as Roach envisioned it.
The Original 3-Hour Collection" 3CD packaged in very decently and attractively looking 6-panel digipak. As indicated by its title, Steve presents here absolutely peaceful and minimal aerial washes, floating ambience at its most relaxing and meditative level. Several long form pieces are featured on this treasured set, for example both parts of "The Green Place" that complete disc one, each one clocking over 30-minute mark. This is most likely the most naturally sounding ambience in these series with strong organic feel enriched by captivating and relaxing field recordings that beautifully color Steve's serene soundscapes and Will Morris' flute (with the synthesizer help of Mike Christopher at the beginning of Part One). The music splendidly portrays the first part of the cover image. Disc two, consisting of five compositions, three of them are shorter, while the last two pieces, "A Few More Moments" and "Air And Light", are longer (13 and 32 minutes) , is full of minimal and simple palettes, yet slowly and gently evolving, hauntingly beautiful and evoking vast landscape panoramas, where all these sonic textures capture pure magic of brightness, peace, serenity and silence. This truly fascinating journey, transporting each listener to another time and space, proceedes also on disc three. Two longer floaters include "Dreaming And Sleep" and "Sleep And Dreaming"(again featuring Will Morris on flute), while "Quiet Canon" clocks to 8 minutes, but all these three compositions will navigate you to beautifully magical and subconscious night sky trip.
QUIET MUSIC is a collection of pieces created between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and sounds of nature flowing like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate, translucent atmosphere.
QUIET MUSIC is a collection of pieces cerated in respect for silence between 1983 and 1986.
Besides its obvious relaxing qualities - much of this type of music is relaxing - there is also something ethereal and earthy about most of his work, especially that of late where he is experimenting with Native American/southwestern rhythms. Quiet Music is really no exception.
The blurb on the back cover reads "Like a shimmering mirage on the desert, this subtle music reflects your own images, evoking shades of mood and meaning." I really couldn't put it better myself. There are tracks here are so subtle that on the one hand they almost stand still - like one moment is captured, and yet convey a sense of movement. Of, well, drifting sands and floating clouds. It is at once relaxing and intriguing, wondering where the next note leads - the next dune leads, perhaps. I would imagine that for anyone who spends a great deal of their time in the city, this music may not mean much to them. Except for the wee hours of the morning, and maybe not even then, there isn't much complete silence to explore. For those who spend time in the "great wide open," this will resonate with them.
This album evokes the sound, mood, and feel of silence. One person alone with elements, at one with the universe, so to speak. And while that sounds like "New Age mumbo-jumbo," it really isn't intended to be. We should, however, spend more time reflecting upon ourselves, discovering who we are, what makes us the unique individual we are. When you do that, you can appreciate more the things around you.
However, if you were in total silence, you wouldn't be able to listen to this album, now would you?

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2013
This collection of previously-released pieces was refined over several years of movement magic between horses and humans. Created for the Eponaquest horse-faciliated workshop Rasa Dance by equine innovator and best-selling author Linda Kohanov, the music sets the tone for interactive sessions where horses and humans literally move and dance together, thus providing a supportive atmosphere for the experience of connection. This dynamic music set covers a powerful range of emotions and inspiration which perfectly mirrors the Rasa Dance workshop theme.
The collection brings together an inspired set of thematic, rhythmic, and melodic pieces from Steve Roach's vast body of work.
The Evolution of Rasa Dance
In 1993, at the height of my career as a music critic, I sold my CD collection to buy Tabula Rasa, a beautiful black Arabian mare. Six months later, I was riding her in the desert when a huge Rottweiler chased us through a deep sandy wash, injuring Rasa’s right back leg, ending our promising riding career, yet ironically leading us on a much more fruitful path.
The Chinese sage Lao-tzu observed that “it is upon disaster that good fortune rests,” a lesson that Rasa and her other herd members challenged me to embrace over and over again. While the sheer joy of working with horses always outweighed the hardships, the most profound transformations happened when things didn’t go my way---when my most reliable tools, ideas, and coping strategies failed, and I had to respond to the world rather than try to control it. Through Rasa, I learned to dance with the unexpected while literally learning how to dance with her on the ground. This consolation for my inability to ride her turned into a relationship-enhancing practice that I used with other horses, and eventually taught to people through our “Rasa Dance” workshops.
For these clinics, my husband Steve and I perused his extensive list of original compositions, selecting various moods and tempos. This CD collection was refined through years of movement magic between horses and humans. “Eye of Noche” and “Where Rasa Lives” were later created in memory of two horses who became great dancers, then great dance teachers of people, including those who had never worked with horses before. I was subsequently surprised to find the phrase “Rasa Dance” associated with the ancient god Krishna, who danced with his followers by moonlight. In India, a sacred performance is still called a Rasa Dance, signifying a state of grace in which Spirit engages with its many manifestations, expressing different aspects of infinity through the music of connection.But it was a living, breathing horse named Rasa who taught me that when two beings move in synchrony, a greater consciousness arises. Most importantly, I learned that if we can dance with joy, ecstasy, power, frustration, miscommunication, tragedy and anything else that comes our way, an underlying sense of deep peace emerges, allowing us to fully engage with life.

Linda Kohanov

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2024
2CD in 6-panel digipakReflections in Repose captures the pure essence of Steve Roach's ever-deepening intimate embrace of silence, breath, rich harmonic inventiveness, and shifting liminal states; it's a sound and style completely unique to his electronic/ambient vision. Created over two evenings at the close of 2023, the music was recorded in the same sequenced flow as presented on the two discs' 116 minutes. The five long-form tracks were performed on a single instrument -- the Oberheim OB-X8 -- the modern equivalent of the iconic Oberheim OB-8 which Steve used 40 years ago in the making of his classic piece Structures from Silence. Steve reflects, As I conceived these pieces, the intention and flow was to merge into the space where 'Structures' was born. Not as a nostalgic tribute but rather embodying the place where this essence lives within me. It's the realm where I fully inhabit the emotional suspension and dynamic connection to the transportive power of sound. Expressing it in the moment with clarity and focus. Artist Bio: As a pioneering cornerstone of ambient-atmospheric-electronic music, internationally-renowned artist Steve Roach has dedicated his life to exploring myriad soundworlds that express a timeless source of inspiration. Capturing peak moments as they occur in his Timeroom studio, he manifests a sonic experience that breathes a vital life energy, connecting to an ever-expanding global audience. Drawing from his 45-year dedication to the evolution of electronic music, concerts worldwide, and a lifelong passion for the hardware instrument-based way of working, Roach brings us to a summit drawn from his life in the soundcurrent -- a timeless ephemeral and empowered space that soothes, inspires and enlightens.

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2023
Emerging from a place of deep peace, expansiveness and renewal, Rest of Life is Steve Roach’s new 134-minute opus to quietude. With a graceful, nurturing quality expressed in five different reflective moods, Disc One is 70 minutes of impressionistic, emotion-infused electronic soundscapes. As Steve reflects, “I consciously tuned into the soul tone of Structures from Silence and Quiet Music. Not in a nostalgic sense but exploring and expressing where this feeling lives in me now in the depth of myself at this point in time. As stated in the Quiet Music release notes years ago, the essence of this deep listening occurs not only within the experience of the music itself but also within the place that you are after the music fades and you return to the silence, this rest of life.”

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2018
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

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2023
Masterfully joining the two worlds that define Steve Roach’s signature styles, the 140-minute 2CD Sanctuary of Desire combines deep ambience and mesmerizing, spiral-like forms in a majestic flow of stately elegance and breathtaking aural drift.
Disc one explores a realm of suspended tranquility, sustained reflection and emotional resonance.
Disc two soars upon a morphing journey into the mythic imagination by way of multi-dimensional
Mandala-like tapestries woven from Steve’s mastery of analog-based synths and sequencers and hovering atmospherics. A timeless ephemeral and empowered space that soothes, inspires and enlightens. “The album,” Roach muses, “is a cathedral of the future built to hold and nourish the deep spirit of the creative life. It has transcendent yearning, aspiration and integration at its foundation.”

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2016
Shadow of Time reconnects to deep breathing atmospherics, textural electronics and zen-like immersion spaces. The inner stillness and sumptuous shimmering of warm analog synthesizers pulse and overlap in harmony as if waves gently touching upon a cosmic shore. A rich 74-minute deep listening experience. "Like all of Roach's best meditative pieces, the silence between and around the chords is as important as the sounds themselves." - Ambient Music Guide

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2010
Emotions quietly stir and resonate in this deeply self-reflective album exploring the terrain between melodic electronic/ambient and modern minimalism. These six pieces utilize gentle melody, harmony and sonic tonality to poignantly reflect upon the passage of time, life lived, lives passed and a time of renewal: a sigh of the ages expressed in sound.
SIGH OF AGES is the result of extended periods of solitude and personal reflection for acclaimed composer Roach. Resulting directly from dynamic personal and cultural events, these pieces developed over time and in the moment. After 10 months of early morning and late night sonic meditations, Roach collected these various pieces and found they portrayed a poetic theme of sonic interpretations from this experience. Sculpted and refined in the artist's deft hands, the source material of life itself took on a voice that spoke from a deep emotional well of subtle contemplation. A sacred realm of inner reflection.
"The title came to me as I was creating the pieces," Roach recalls. "Titles always seem to emerge through the hours of working on the music combined with the place the sound takes me. What emerged was the sense of what it feels like to release a big sigh after a challenging time or a long run in life. A poignant sense of nostalgia and longing, breathing a collective sigh of release which carries forth into psychological and spiritual space. That is where the music and eventually the title grew from."
SIGH OF AGES taps into a lineage of signpost releases starting with the '80s melodic era of STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE and QUIET MUSIC up through the textural tour de force of 2003's MYSTIC CHORDS & SACRED SPACES and 2009's DYNAMIC STILLNESS. For this journey, Roach drew on his essential collection of beloved analog synthesizers including a classic 40-year-old Arp String Ensemble, a historic polyphonic synthesizer that breathes life into the track "Morning of Ages," swirling and rolling upon itself like the strong currents of a rushing mountain river. "The View from Here" unfolds in a stately motion on a majestic sequenced pulse with voluminous melodic synthesizer clouds unfolding along the horizon. This alchemy of sounds creates a deeply nuanced album filled with shadow and light, unique within the language of Roach's soundworlds.
While the passage of time and expansive breath is an ongoing theme for Roach, the reflections and perceptions expressed on SIGH OF AGES delves into a contrasted intimate space only accessed in times of solitude. It is the deeply-layered, subtley-nuanced emotional language which is the ongoing, unseen undercurrent of our lives.

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2015
There's a worldwide analog modular synthesizer resurgence in full swing. Pioneering electronic musician Steve Roach taps into the zeitgeist on SKELETON KEYS, a 74-minute album recorded using the Synthesizers.com large format analog modular synthesizer­/sequencer-based system. These are eight emotional and mind-expanding spiraling mandalas-of-sound made from interwoven tapestries of melody, rhythm, tone and musical space. "SKELETON KEYS connects directly to my first love in electronic music," Steve Roach explains. "This form of music creates a living portal to a unique place in consciousness, emotion, body awareness and expansion of perception. It's a place that can only be reached by way of this genre and these instruments, in particular the sequencer: a tool common within electronic music since early in its inception. I have been obsessed with the sound this instrument facilitates since my arrival as a composer in the late 70's." With the availability of a new era of hardware instrument builders to draw from, in early 2014 Steve set out to create his ideal large format modular synthesizer­/sequencer-based system. "My intention was single-minded," Steve says, "to make these 'Keys' in particular. The instant this system was in place, the compulsion to create was unleashed. Each piece on this release is an aural skeleton key providing entry through these arcane doors to what awaits inside. In addition, the momentum of my life's experience was vital in helping turn the skeleton key to open these doors at this precise moment." Steve's artistic path is filled with new discoveries, both nuanced and dramatic. He brings to the table years of dedication and experience exploring sound via hands-on synthesis. With the sense of an artist working in three dimensional space, Steve's skill set creates an album that breathes power, passion and vital life energy. On SKELETON KEYS Steve connects to the European EM masters at the roots of his electronic heritage while simultaneously mapping the soundworld of today's contemporary technology-based music. The result is warm and engaging retro-futurism, a continuing evolution upon the musical structures Steve has unlocked in the restless pursuit of his soundquest.