Roach, Steve

Artist: Solitaire
P: 1993
Ritual Ground is a spontaneous sonic combustion, rich in cinematic overtones, deep atmospheres and tribal-electronic grooves. Previously available for a short time on San Francisco's now defunct Silent label -- and featured in the musical score of the Michael Mann film, Heat -- Ritual Ground is a lost classic tribal-ambient gem, back in print at last.
Steve Roach's musical explorations have taken him into many different realms, always touching a primal nerve and evoking brilliant mindscapes for the listener. A respected and much followed solo artist, Roach has also embarked on many collaborations in which the interplay between musicians nourishes the creative process. Ritual Ground is the result of one of those instrumental partnerships and stands as an important landmark in the development of tribal music. In 1993, Roach went to Europe for his second series of concerts outside the United States. While there, he met German synthesizer artist Elmar Schulte, whose own work has appeared on several different European labels. Spurred by their mutual desire to create new, tribal music, Roach and Schulte immediately booked studio time, recording together under the name Solitaire. The result of their intensive meeting of musical minds was this album.

Artist: Steve Roach & B.Metcalf & M.Seelig
P: 2004  
Like the living, breathing, meditative movement of the Sufi trance dance, MANTRAM is grounded in a reverence for the slowing of time which allows the natural reflective process to emerge. Slow heartbeat-like acoustic frame drum, overtone voice, Didgeridoo, Bansuri flute, and Tamboura drones mix with a majestic tapestry of organic electronic textures, offering the sonic equivalent of the power found when gazing into timeless Mandala images found in classic sacred art.
The entire CD holds a consistent interconnected feeling that seems to spiral outwards when experienced in repeat playback. Ethno-ambient travellers, those looking for a sustained exotic mood, anyone wanting ambient music with a global beat to it and an introspective tranquillity. Karunesh too recently produced a CD built around Asian sounds in Call of the Mystic - but, whereas, his music develops gentle new age melodies, Mantram is more sober, unstructured, mesmerizing, pensive.

Artist: Steve Roach + Brian Parnham
P: 2011
Steve Roach's unique soundquests continue to take him and his listeners on powerful journeys to worlds at once alien and familar. On The Desert Inbetween, Roach teams up with fellow synthesist/percussionist/didgeridoo player Brian Parnham to explore a hybrid electronic acoustic soundworld sure to please listeners of Suspended Memories and Origins-era tribalism as well as The Serpent's Lair-styled electronics.
The blending of highly-altered organic sounds and instruments (voices, bells, didgeridoo & percussion, Waterphone), electric guitar and a vast array of analog and digital instruments connects deep into the primal mind. Drawing inspiration from the stark and magnificent expanses of the desert southwest, this project explores the outer edges of solitude: psychological states accessed when the imagination is cut free from daily concerns and permitted to focus on the essentials.
The Desert Inbetween expresses a longing for a state of beautiful isolation. The desert bakes away the superfluous to bring about a heightened state of self awareness, the expanse in between ordinary reality and special states of connected, creative awareness.
The desert has long been a lanscape that holds great inspiration for musical artists, writers and painters. To the receptive, it immediately provides a more direct path to the deeper self and source of one's artistic impulses. As the land of extremes, the desert is alive with beauty, stark vastness, magnificent vistas and silence. All of these places are expressed on The Desert Inbetween. Both artists know this desert realm after years of being immersed in this environment. Either as a metaphor for the inner world or a direct interpretation, the dynamic and subtle interweave of this experience is clearly alive here.
The Desert Inbetween is a masterwork collaboration of organic, tribal ambient rhythms, nuanced hand-made sounds and searing textures.

Artist: Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf
P: 2010
The essential ingredients of ancient and contemporary shamanic trance states are fully activated in this highly potent new release. Byron carved out a collection of incredible trance grooves for nearly a year, eventually bringing in the prana-infused didgeridoo of Dashmesh Khalsa on every track. Steve joined on in early January 2010 and poured his heart and soul-drenched soundworlds into the six pieces, covering a full range of ecstatic dreamtime flow: rhythm, breath and expansion. The end result is a full-blown dreamtime alchemy of all the elements. The living, breathing percussion, didgeridoo and soundworlds are unified in a single purpose: to open to the door out of the ordinary world, initiating the listener into an empowered journey of infinite possibilities for spiritual rebirth, illumination, and transcendence.

Artist: Steve Roach + Byron Metcalf + Mark Seelig
P: 2008
A continuous flow in seven parts. Low drones and something like eerie sitar music lend an otherworldly feel to the first of seven parts that play as one continuous piece of music. World and ambient music are fused together harmoniously as wood flutes, clay pots, overtone vocals, and of course Steve’s various treatments combine into a unified whole.
The album is similar to Mantram in that it goes very deep, practically demanding the listener reach a different plane of consciousness. Each track is called an excerpt rather than a part, further emphasizing the intended continuous listening experience. Until tribal drums arrive in the fourth passage, the music evolves incredibly slowly, but once change comes it comes boldly, the drums bleating insistently and continuing into part five, which becomes more intense and dramatic.
Things calm a bit in the sixth excerpt as flutes return, and further still on the 17-minute closing section which makes for a soothing relaxing finish.

Artist: Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf
P: 2010
After two years pushing the creative edges, TALES FROM THE ULTRA TRIBE emerges as a fire-breathing life form. The deep trance-shamanic-atmospheric collaboration between Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf evokes the primordial caverns and aeon-blasted landscapes of their groundbreaking THE SERPENT'S LAIR.
And yet on TALES FROM THE ULTRA TRIBE, a new sound emerges.
It's a lucid trance-groove experience, a searing combination of acoustic percussion and hyper-dimensional electronic rhythms. The Ultra Tribe are the future primitives: the future-tech foundation wrapped by the organic. It's no longer clear where the human ends and the machine begins.
The elements of this sound are Steve's complex hybrid-grooves overlaid by Byron's primal, fluid and organic -- yet precise -- frame drums and percussion. It's an atmosphere of shifting soundworlds in which the forms of the Ultra Tribe exist. An alchemy of electronic sequencers, drum machines and percussion locks in the groove, while the human element jumps in and out of the steady pulse, giving the music a passionate intensity. The elements are deftly shaped to a point of complete integration where the final result is transformed into a living breathing body with an electro-organic soul.
As one of the original architects of the tribal-ambient genre, Steve Roach's innovations are mapped out on the landmark albums ORIGINS, ARTIFACTS, AND DREAMTIME RETURN, along with releases from the Suspended Memories trio and the more recent Fever Dreams series. Similarly, Byron Metcalf's tribal-shamanic albums Helpers, Guides & Allies, Not Without Risk, The Shaman's Heart, and A Warning From the Elders, serve as a benchmark for deep journey exploration. In the late 90's, Steve teamed up with Byron, and over the span of a dozen years they've created an array of releases that explore and push the outer edges of shamanic-electronic tribalism.
The eight pieces on TALES FROM THE ULTRA TRIBE are built into a seamless 74-minute deep-journey experience. Adding to the overall impact is a high resolution sound achieved through masterful recording and mixing techniques. With a multi-dimensional trance-groove trajectory, the sound is a tribal-electronic well of experience. A continuous kaleidoscope of visionary power, mystery and visceral awe envelops the listener. The synergistic alchemy of Steve's and Byron's work fuses to new levels of audio-induced, mind-expanding music.

Artist: Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf
P: 2000   
Ambient explorer Roach and percussionist Metcalf originally began this as an experiment into the effects of breathwork and the use of sound on a person "as a shamanic strategy for healing, personal growth, and transformation." The successful effects their music had in group settings were extended into these compositions. While billed as a collaboration between the two men, The Serpent's Lair also features contributions by (deep breath) violinist Vicki Richards, overtone vocalist Jim Cole, pre-Hispanic sound sorcerer Jorge Reyes, singer Lena Stevens, synthesist Vidna Obmana, "groove alchemist" Vir Unis, and djembe players Jeffrey Fayman and Momodu "Mohammad" Kah. The two discs in this package act as yin and yang--the eight parts of the first disc, "The Serpent's Lair," highlight intoxicatingly hypnotic drum rhythms slicing through churning ambient spaces, while the seven cuts that make up the second disc, "Offerings from the Underworld," travel down darker, spacier streams with subtle rhythms, reverberant vocals, and exotic aerophones caressing and riding the ethereal aural waves. This invigorating combination of musicians invents a dynamic new perspective on Roach's trademark deep-listening forays. It would be wonderful to hear more collaborations like this.
All music arranged, mixed, melted and recorded by Steve Roach at the Timeroom Studio, Tucson AZ. 1999 - 2000
Music produced by Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf.

With musical help from:
Vicki Richards - serpentine violin in The Lair
Lena Stevens - processed voice
Vidna Obmana - harmonic wave in pt. I in Rite Of Passage.
Jeffery Faymanand Momodu "Mohammad" Kah - djembe in Rite Of Passage, Big Medicine and Future Tribe
Jorge Reyes - voice, flutes, ocarinas, whistles, shamanic percussion and voice in Birthright and Cave Dwellers
Vir Unis - groove alchemy in Beating Hearth Of The Dragon Mother and Lena - voice in Ochua

Artist: Steve Roach & D.Hudson & S.Hopkins
P: 1990    
Australia: Sounds of the Earth captures the primordial hums and rhythms that have emerged from and moved across this continent in the four directions, like the winds themselves since The Dreamtime began. This recording features the didgeridoo, an Aboriginal wind instrument of remarkable flexibility and power, in traditional and innovative formats. Virtuoso solos by Aboriginal artist, David Hudson, are complemented by performances of up to four didgeridoo players accompanied by drums and electronics.Tracing the development of an indigenous music firmly rooted in patterns of existence dictated by the rhythms of the land, Australia: Sounds of the Earth embraces Australia's musical past and present. The riveting performance of cellist Sarah Hopkins, acknowledges the debt 20th century composers owe to the influence of Aboriginal music. By utilizing a combination of bowing techniques and overtone singing, the Australian cellist emulates sounds of the didgeridoo. Producer, Steve Roach, blends the recordings from the outback with their haunting modern echoes by creating evocative soundscapes, and the illusion of a journey through time and space to the origins of these primal sounds.

Artist: Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana
P: 2012    
After a ten year hiatus, Steve Roach and Dirk Serries (formerly recording as vidnaObmana or Vidna Obmana) reconnect to begin anew. The result is LOW VOLUME MUSIC, an introspective musical palette solely dedicated to harmony, integrity and pure beauty.
In a world where the noise level of daily life has increased to a fever pitch, this release offers an essential sonic respite from the external distractions. These five delicate sound meditations appear in the listening space like slowly drifting incense. The pieces are built upon a perfect blend of deep ambient characteristics: looping and lush textures and harmonics mixed with subtle, hovering, lattice-like forms. The tracks follow a zen-like flow, bringing the listener's attention down to a distinct stillness, a single point; gently shifting, sparkling mirror pools of sound are revealed as meditations to reflect upon. The understated beauty of LOW VOLUME MUSIC offers a path back to the soulful nourishment found at the quiet center.
"We chose the title LOW VOLUME MUSIC," Dirk reflects, "because we wanted to score an album of pure minimalism, introspection and harmony; music that is most effective at a lower volume. Although it draws from our personal and mutual universe of sound, I believe the biggest difference from the past is we both wanted to aim for something unclouded without pushing each other to break sonic boundaries. We both felt it was vital for us personally to express that part of us that we return to: the pure, harmonically-nuanced side of our art that we naturally live and breathe."
Over the course of their six releases and many international concerts, Roach and Serries pushed the edges of ambient electronic music, then when the time felt right they respectfully stepped away to pursue other work. With LOW VOLUME MUSIC, Roach and Serries reconnect to create a beautiful release, displaying a vision sublimely refined, minimal, and true. This is perhaps their most personal collaboration to date.