Roach, Steve

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 1984 / 2014 / 2024
STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE's breathing, suspended embrace of atmospheres and serene melodies instantly struck a chord with listeners in 1984; the album continues to reiterate its timeless resonations with new listeners today.
In 1983, as Steve Roach began work on his third album, the dedication to finding his voice as a composer and artist was coming into full bloom. On this landmark recording of gentle proportions, he emerged with a sound completely outside of the 80's era in which it was created. The three long-form tracks on STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE were the birth of something new; it was an original and pure statement, a dramatic departure from his earlier works in the German-influenced electronic space music genre. Striking a balance between diaphanous and gentle, deep and reflective, the listening experience evoked a sense of silence within the music as well as the space between the chords. It expresses the breath of life and offers a meditation on delicate strands of subtle awareness.
During its creation, Steve let the music take form in moments of focused stillness within the studio. At the time of the recording, Steve wrote, "I spent much time in silence, a beautiful place. Feeling the sound move through that space was vital in its development... For me the essence of the music is what is felt when it ends, a returning to the silence."
Forty years later, Structures from Silence remains an iconic American release in the ambient and electronic genres. It’s a well-respected soundtrack for contemplation, relaxation, meditation, and creativity. Emotional, powerful, and enriching, it is a living example of the true healing quality that music can hold.

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2021
This third collaboration from Steve and Serena was drawn from the desire to create sound and music for the divinatory experience. To support this intention, divination (the practice of seeking knowledge of the unknown by various natural, psychological and other techniques) was actively engaged in the birthing of the music.
In the process of creating TEMPLE OF THE MELTING DAWN, a bridge and unique access point to a powerfully lucid and creative space was discovered. Through this experience, this enchanting set of seven sonic offerings manifested.
The divinatory tools for this project, musical instruments of ancient and modern origin, seamlessly blend to invite the listener into a time suspended place where connection to a deep sense of one's inner wisdom is enhanced. The sound of the lyre, flute, kalimba, harmonium and stone metate magically merge with a gathering of synthesizers and inventive recording techniques. The result of this sonic alchemy reveals an ever changing unfoldment of perception upon each listen.

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2003
This purely atmospheric set maps the shift from the tonal serenity found on Steve's earlier work towards the harmonically rich and contrasted souldworlds of late. The centerpiece of TEXTURE MAPS is a pivotal 20-minute piece recorded the same week as "Looking for Safety" from DREAMTIME RETURN. Titled "Grey and Purple", it's a genuine lost piece from 1987 that foreshadows Steve's sonic evolution as later realized on THE MAGNIFICENT VOID and ultimately MYSTIC CHORDS & SACRED SPACES.
1. "Gray and Purple" (1987) -- This pivotal piece was recorded live in the studio the same week as "Looking for Safety" from DREAMTIME RETURN. In listening now, I can feel how it was forecasting the oncoming contrasted harmonic climates that would become most realized on THE MAGNIFICENT VOID and MYSTIC CHORDS & SACRED SPACES. The shift from the serene nature of QUIET MUSIC and STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE is clear on this recording.
2. "Artifact Ghost" (1993) -- This atmosphere has continued to haunt me from the moment it was made. It first was heard supporting the momentum of the rhythmic forms on ARTIFACTS and WELL OF SOULS. This pure version was used as a "walk in" atmosphere for many concerts around this time. While it's around nine minutes on this CD, the original length was 90 minutes. I found the circular - spiraling - aspect of this steady state space especially effective when it was played in continuous low volume loop playback in the house for many days and nights around this time.
3, 4, 5. "Spiral Triptych" (2001) -- These three interconnected spaces are part of a large collection of unreleased zones that shaped the direction of the MYSTIC CHORDS & SACRED SPACES project early on.
6. "Bottomless 2" (1999) -- An alternate mix of a piece featured on a compilation for the Hypnos label. It is poured from a similar material that made THE MAGNIFICENT VOID, and created around this same time.
7, 8. "Quiet Sun" and "Soul Light" (2003) -- These two spaces are a few of the many created live in the studio after MYSTIC CHORDS & SACRED SPACES was complete. The creative momentum continued pulling me deeper in as I was coming back up to the surface upon the official conclusion of the four Mystic CD's. The pieces kept coming, and this one in particular feels like a fitting bookend in relationship to the opening piece from 1987, "Gray and Purple".

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2014
LTD
The special limited-edition release, included free with hardcopy purchases of THE DELICATE FOREVER, was gone in no time. After many requests, Steve has created a second limited-edition run. This is serenity at a cellular level, the essence of hearing beyond and into forever. Presented on CD in Eco-Wallet.

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2014
Steve Roach's new studio release THE DELICATE FOREVER presents a reverie of gentle and etheric ambient sound meditations that awaken complex and resonant states of emotional and psychological perspectives. The nuanced, minimal electronics interplay with a masterful use of musical space, breath, silence, and rich textural colors in a subtle dynamic flow. Nurturing the senses in inexplicable ways, these sound paintings become an evocative environment for activating a state of rarefied reflections.
As a pioneer of ambient-electronic-contemplative music, Steve Roach has dedicated nearly four decades to creating a music that connect into a deep well of inspiration and innovation. His expansive, time-suspending sound worlds earned his position in the global pantheon of major new music artists. His live concerts are events that draw avid participants from around the world. His studio work blends seamlessly into the live setting just as the in-the-moment live energy informs the core of his work in the studio.
Roach says the process of revisiting his classic STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE, for its recent 3-CD 30th anniversary reissue, helped inspire the pieces that evolved into THE DELICATE FOREVER.
Roach reflects, "After placing such detailed focus on the Structures From Silence remaster, along with the new pieces on the second and third disc, I was taken through the eye of the needle in many ways. This new sense in my fingertips awoke when using the analog instruments, giving way to a new level of subtle, delicate sonic shifts of harmonic texture and form. At the same time, a kind of hearing through an 'inner' ear seemed to occur. A reaching towards new tonalities and colors became my obsession: making this conscious is where I am living now, day and night. The 'forever' is directly connected to the underlying current of life: mortality. THE DELICATE FOREVER maps out a new phase in my current work, reaching further towards a deeper ineffable experience.

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2014
The Desert Experience:
This release started as a collection of desert-themed tracks sequenced for summer road trips between Arizona and California, sometimes in dark of night cloaked from the heat, other trips in the broad searing rays of the Summer sun. Drawing from over three decades of desert music, this magical blend creates a set that places one directly into the dramatic and emotive, immersive Southwest landscapes.

The Land Of Extremes:
My daily life and creative motivations are constantly infused with the relationship that has evolved for me within this land of extremes. The expansive beauty, harsh and dramatic, still and quiet, it's all here. While much of my music is not directly about the desert, the constant influence of this land that is my spiritual home is the calibration tone I set my life to. It continues to burn away the insignificant and illuminate with a perfect light what matters.
The Desert Collection:
Since before I was making music, I was making mix-tapes (first on 8-track and then cassettes) of road music for drives through the SoCal desert and mountain backroads. The music soundtrack to these drives would somehow play to where the dynamic pieces would time out with dramatic shifts in the landscapes, most always by chance and always making the moment larger than ordinary life. I love the freedom of driving—alone, in the Southwest with music. It unfurls the knotted mind and cleanses the palette for new creative thoughts to emerge over the drone of the engine mixed with a well-crafted set of music. It seems to propel the car towards the horizon as the sun sets or rises. Countless numbers of my albums have been evaluated, mapped-out and road tested over thousands upon thousands of miles over the years. It's true to say this mix-tape was 30 years in the making. When I hit play on this soundtrack on the way out of Gila Bend recently heading west, thermometer at 105 an hour before sunset, the sky was bleeding orange and red. The first track on THE DESERT COLLECTION emerged. and so did the chills and wet eyes as I was feeling those non-motorized Western travelers from not so long ago -- like me -- looking to "go west". On-board the Ghost Train indeed.

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 1994 / 1999
Since it sold out a few years ago, the requests and feedback from listeners and musicians have shown this piece to be the most admired infinite repeat soundworld created by Steve so far. THE DREAM CIRCLE was first released in 1994 as a signed and numbered DigiPak, limited to 2500 copies. After it sold out, word continued to spread and the requests turned into demands. Through the inspiration of listener feedback, THE DREAM CIRCLE has been re-released on the Timeroom Editions series. This is not a limited release. It comes in a jewel case, not signed or numbered. Now is your chance to feel the slow heat of the dream circle.

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 1993
A great collection of "lost" pieces that came shortly after the completion of a project, or from multi-artist samplers between 1988 and 1992. Steve's various styles from that time are presented here in a way that flows effortlessly from one space to the next. Another good introduction to Steve's music.

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2025
LTD 500
As a significant metaphor in Steve Roach’s sonic milieu, the ever-evolving sky inspired these lush ambient layers of enveloping atmospheric reverie balanced with a timeless pulse. The four longform compositions slowly unfurl harmonic wonder and timeless spectral melodies balanced with grounded mantra-like rhythmic elements.
Created in his desert ridgetop studio which looks out onto a vast distant horizon — equal parts land and sky — THE REVERENT SKY reflects Roach’s ongoing dialogue with the worlds beyond the studio, his artistic process shaped by the panoramic vistas outside and the unbound inspiration within. Perched amidst this breathtaking view as he creates, Roach infuses his music with the subtle yet profound transitions at the very heart of this auditory experience: the light of daybreak to evening twilight, sunrise to sunset and the ethereal transitions into the deep of the night’s sky.

Artist: Steve Roach 
P: 2015
This collection of new and previously unreleased pieces tracks the origin of Skeleton Keys. The first five tracks, recorded in 2005, set the idea into motion of creating a project of pure analog synth/sequencer-based music. I wanted to place the attention directly on these pure kinetic forms, intentionally stripped down to the essentials. The focus remains on the purity of the analog sound and the interweave of the patterned melodic strands and the ever-present pulse. Those elements all work together to create the keys for opening into a place of perception only obtained though this form of music. Analog modular creation is all about spontaneous hands-on interaction and the visceral connection in the body and mind as the sound is spiraling forth from the speakers. No second guessing here: the priority is engaging with the immediacy of live electronic music on hardware instruments. Feel it, go with it, shape it by hand, record it, move on. After orbiting around this project for several years, I continued to return to the original 2005 recordings, still feeling the growing desire to explore the "essence of the sequence" direction. By early 2014, I built a large format analog system on the synthesizers.com platform. This was essential in giving me the tools to unlock the passages that would become the definitive SKELETON KEYS release. Once this album was complete, the momentum remained at a high point. All I could do was keep capturing peak live moments in the studio. By February 2015, tracks 6, 7, and 8 arrived. Including these on this album felt like a perfect perspective on the tracks that started the SKELETON KEYS project a decade ago. It's all here now.