Steve Roach -- the endlessly meditative thread

This thread title made me think perhaps you made a typo and meant Steve Reich. But I guess not. So, I have nothing to add, except that thrilling anecdote. As you were.

There's a ton of Steve Reich threads, so search and revive!

steve roach can't be new age because his music sounds like sitting in a black hole for 3 hours

his artwork doesn't help though :/

my favorite is "mystic chords and sacred spaces"

http://www.steveroach.com/store/store.php?item=247

The new one, Immersion: Three, is kinda mindblowing even for him -- never heard something so dedicated to being furniture music, endless drift and as Cutty says black hole listening all at once.

I also recommend the Mystic Chords 4CD, Roach in beatless ambient mode. Haven't heard the Vidna Obmana collaborations but I have two interesting ones:

In Trance Spirits (with Jeffrey Fayman, Robert Fripp and Momodou Kah) they add busy African drumming to the spacey soundscapes and the effect is great, smooth and droning.

Blood Machine (with Vir Unis) is also very good, computer beats they call "fractal" for some reason. Modern sound and kind of tribal, this actually sounds closer to Trance Spirits than any other Roach I've heard.

I've hardly heard everything but

80's high point = Structures From Silence which is sort of everything that was good about new age -- if the digital synth textures sometimes seem a little simple, they really can be calming. I hated this stuff as a teenager in the 80's compared to trickier darker industrial or classic ambient or the more detailed textures of the Eno records, but this record's aged well. after his earlier sequencer-based albums that did a good job mining the post-Tangerine Dream lots, this was the transitional one where he turned off all the rhythms and went for duration, the last track is 30 minutes and I often just leave that one looping

then comes a whole host of tribal & slow rhythm records, aboriginal influences, peaked by Dreamtime Return which I remember not being my thing at all due to the melodies, flutes & indian percussion -- this was the soundtrack of a thousand head shops, crystal stores & california yoga retreats in the 80's, and a lot of other really frighteningly carefree scenes, and I skipped the next batch of followup albums. but I've been meaning to check it out again since Projekt reissued it.

then in 96 I was hanging out with Mr. Hate on his KFJC radio show and he segued out of a Zoviet-France track into something astoundingly deep, and my jaw dropped when he said it was Steve Roach -- that's Magnificent Void and it's a breakthrough record crossing over 70's/80's Hearts of Space & synth music with 80's ambient industrial, hugely influential and I keep coming back to it

he's very prolific and some albums sound samey, and some of the attempts to integrate the darkwave synths with the tribal rhythm stuff is not for me, but I picked up Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces when Cutty started dropping it on listening lists and it was a good call, he's clearly been slowly working on the sound & hasn't petered out -- many points for keeping it up going on 30 years later, even though if you like him, there were a lot of interesting records in this genre

would very much appreciate calls on some of the other records

the "sleep concerts" are more pioneered by / associated with Robert Rich in the early 80's than Steve Roach. Rich's albums tend to stay on the darker side and his Stalker with Lustmord is also a total classic & I'm curious to hear Somnium - http://www.starsend.org/Somnium.html

& if you like both Ligeti & Magnificent Void I recommend Roland Kayn

Roland Kayn

I have two of Roach's collaborations with Robert Rich -- Strata and Soma -- both of which I have come back to many times over the years. They aren't out in deep space like The Magnificent Void, but they repay attention and inattention equally well.

I also like Roach's Quiet Music, which makes a good hangover soundtrack.

I agree his music can be samey, but considering what he's doing, that may be one of the reasons it's effective.

i often wonder what he uses to make this music--would probably ruin it for me if i found out

i have this one:

http://www.steveroach.com/Music/discography.php?albumID=66

and used it for months as my sleep music, which it is perfect for (except the one track that has some tribal drumming). i think the liners say he used an e-bowed guitar for most of the sounds. i owned an e-bow at one point but never got it to sound like that. he's good at smearing the edge of sounds with reverb

Structures From Silence is a total classic.

revive! I don't own a lot of ambient music, but I've been listening to Tangerine Dream's Phaedra a lot lately and decided I need to rectify this situation. descriptions of Roach's music make it sound right up my alley, but I'm just wondering which of his eight million albums to start with. so far the frontrunners seem to be Structures From Silence, The Magnificent Void, and Mystic Chords (which, incidentally, boasts one of the most endearingly awful reviews I've ever read on AMG); anything else I should be considering?

Streams & Currents is the only Roach album ive been able to get into. sounds nothing like Phaedra though!

Roach's shamanic rituals take listeners deeper into the zone. The psyche is lost in the realms of this bottomless pit, this cavern of the surreal. There are no impossible worlds on this journey. In the realms of nothingness, deep listeners see everything. In seeing everything, listeners gather knowledge. The ritual continues to begin and begins to continue.

lol

Thankfully not one of the reviews I've done of him. (I'm sure those are endearingly awful too.)

Anyway, Structures is a keeper, and I might suggest Early Man as well, plus any of the Immersion discs.

Streams & Currents is the only Roach album ive been able to get into. sounds nothing like Phaedra though!

-- ☪, Thursday, July 5, 2007 4:12 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Bernard, I've been into this stuff recently too (I'm loving TD's Phaedra, Ricochet, and Stratosfear right now) and have been meaning to pick up some Steve Roach. From what I hear, the ones you mention seem to be the most frequently recommended Roach albums.

On a different note, I don't know if you listen to much internet radio, but there are two stations that play a fair amount of Roach's music (along with similar stuff by Robert Rich, Vidna Obnama, Pete Namlook -- new agey but a little darker ambient stuff): Soma FM's the Drone Zone and the Detroit-based Paxahau. Both are accessible through iTunes radio listings (under the "ambient" tag, I think) or from their sites. Paxahau has some streaming problems occasionally and can get a little choppy, but they play some pretty cool stuff.

Also, I'm sure you're into Eno already but if not, an obvious pick is Ambient 4: On Land. It has some great stuff on it that fits in well with Roach's darker stuff.

I actually don't own any Eno. I have some Harold Budd that I enjoy, so I was thinking of getting one of their collaborations as a good Eno starting point, but somehow I keep putting it off.

get The Plateaux of Mirror right now.

music 4 airports > on land

yes

no

I love Music for Airports, but I find On Land a lot more interesting. Maybe for a nice, calming ambient album MfA works better, but On Land has this uneasiness to it that I find pretty fascinating -- it's so wonderfully dark and eerie.

i've given 'dreamtime return' a listen to tonight. i thought the first half of it was godly, then, i don't know. . . the second half just kind of went nowhere for me. i know i'll have to give this another listen or two, but if that's what i just got from this album right now, could anybody tell me if i should seek out anything else he's done? i mean, i really do enjoy this kind of shiftless new age-y ambience, but that did become a bit trying after a while. maybe it was my own fault for just sitting down and taking it all in at once?

can be easy to overdose on this stuff, though enough of Roach's records are different to justify owning several (of the dozens)

it's always time to listen to tod dockstader's 'aerial 1' again, though it was composed decades after roach hit his stride, which is a big part of the reason I learned to <3 steve roach, time is on his side

get The Plateaux of Mirror right now.

and then get The Pearl

do not pass Go, do not collect $200

Well what a coincidence - I've been listening to a lot of Steve Roach recently. I can't say I'd recommend any more than any other (that's helpful of me isn't it) but I will say you can really do some serious zoning out to it and that's fine by me.

His latest on Projekt, Dynamic Stillness, has one of the darkest sounding beginnings I've heard from him yet. Pretty dramatic statement of purpose (and matched by the artwork, which like the music makes me think a bit of Thomas Köner's work, if more by association).

Count me as a fan, primarily of Roach's 4th World ambient side. This album, in particular, is tremendously effective at evoking amelodic twilight rituals in the late Pleistocene, with much amanita muscaria:

Steve Roach - Origins (1993)
http://img.digitroc.com/cd/569/L145141.jpg

It's sorta lost amongst his mountain of releases and collaborations, but to me this is the album where he achieved exactly the production ambiance he was aiming at post-Dreamtime Return. About of a third of his albums since have been variations on its formula.

When I hear Roach's name, I always think of those terrible AMG writers who end every review with: "This is essential e-music."

Ran across a box of old tapes I recorded off the radio from when I was in high school. Most of them were things like the Dr. Demento show, KLOS' "The Seventh Day" (seven albums in their entirety!), but I had a couple tapes of KSPC's electronic music show - one of shows featured most of Roach's album Traveller. Definitely wears its Klaus Schulze influence on its sleeve, but it's a tremendous album.

If it's the droney side of Roach you're looking for, check out Robert Rich, especially "Trances/Drones." I drift off to that nearly as often as Budd and/or Eno.

Also, Jeff Greinke's "Cities in Fog"--music inspired by late night walks in the industrial outskirts of Seattle and the drone of trucks on distant highways at 3 a.m.

I've listened to a good amount of Steve Roach and one I just got off emusic called "Life Sequence" from 2003 is one of the best. It is kind of a modern return to the rolling German 70s style of repetitive rolling sequencer music that Schulze and Tangerine Dream would do and Roach did earlier in his career except with modern production sounds.

It is really excellent.

absolutely the best music for driving around in southern california thinkin about your LIFE. for real. not bad for doing so in other states either but A+++ for doin this in california.

my favorite one for the last two years has been "Immersion: One" -- his first one where it's basically just an absolutely motionless pad, no chords changes, no events, nothing happens or changes for 73:16 -- I bought Two & Three as well, it's the same approach but I can't make it all the way through those, but One is a thing

I tried 'Dreamtime Return' again last year and it's still a little too glossy for me, when I try to sleep to it I get worn down instead of relaxed, it's almost like there's -too much- going on in it. still listening to Karma Moffett's 'Golden Bowls of Compassion' about every single day.

you know what needs a reissue? http://www.discogs.com/Geoffrey-Chandler-Starscapes/release/664130 -- recorded after hours at Orban in 1980

Structures from Silence impressed me when I was previewing it on iTunes. Actually, I'm a little pissed right now that so little of his stuff is on Spotify and MOG. I just wanna be like, "People, services like these are what your music is made for!"

you know what needs a reissue? http://www.discogs.com/Geoffrey-Chandler-Starscapes/release/664130 -- recorded after hours at Orban in 1980

Recorded and mixed at Orban Recording, Menlo Park, California using a Moog synthesizer with extensive outboard processing equipment, including custom multiple-delay-line analog time-base process, custom voltage-controlled narrowband and wideband frequency shifters, parametric equalizer and reverberation. Mixed through the Orban Stereo Matrix, which creates stereo space and depth effects.

I bought Structures From Silence today on iTunes -- I'm a huge sucker for endlessly shifting analog pads. Sounds to me based on the articles I've read the last few weeks that the guy is an Oberheim Xpander ninja of sorts -- this record would seem to be evidence of that.

I've had a bit harder of a time digging into The Magnificent Void tho I definitely appreciate it for its...emptiness. This is one that actually is on Spotify so I'd like to give it a few more chances.

Another I've poked around on iTunes with is Empetus -- one of his more Berlin-ish sequencer outings from the mid-80s. The reissue has another CD of long sequencer tracks he did in 1982. Clips make it sound good -- presumably on his ARP 2600.

Apparently if you buy CDs from his site he'll apparently autograph them! Not sure that's enough to make me pile yet more CDs into my house -- but I'd still like to hear more.

A healthy approach.

Cool piece on the 30th anniversary of Structures:

http://m.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/celebrating-the-silences/Content?oid=4074680

And here's my own on same!

http://www.wonderingsound.com/review/steve-roach-structures-silence-30th-anniversary-deluxe-remastered-edition/

Good piece, Ned.

Thoughts on the two other discs? Liner notes?

I admit that I haven't yet quite *gotten* Roach's immersive thing just yet – and that part of what I love about this record is that it has layers upon layers of what is, at the end of the day, a distinctively Oberheim sound.

The original edit mentions the extra two discs more -- also lovely but, I think enjoyably and appropriately, different from the original; he didn't try and recreate the sound but sought to explore the same themes from his point of view from where he more currently stands.

Been listening to my (older) Projekt re-release of Structures from Silence and wondering if it is worth ordering the deluxe edition or just snagged some other Roach back catalog stuff I've missed. I get enough shit for buying more than one Steve Roach album, imagine if they find out I'm buying the same one twice. Actually it won't surprise anyone at this point.

Part of me thinks, "Gee, I really love SfS, I wish he recorded more stuff like it" – which it course makes me think I should buy the set as well...

New tracks not really like SfS at all, instantly spotable as recent output.

I got a copy of 'Dynamic Stillness' last year at the Hearts of Space festival in San Rafael and it's solid recent Roach, same textures as the Immersions but with much more in the way of slow harmonic changes & melodies.

Been listening to a lot of Jorge Reyes recently and have just gotten around to the two Suspended Memories collaborations with Roach. Maybe a little less deep than Reyes on his own but still pretty great.

he's working on a collab with Michael Stearns which I am looking forward to

he's working on a collab with Michael Stearns which I am looking forward to

yes, based on both their performances during Steve's festival, that should be a great record.

If you have fifteen minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Nw9dVUokA

Per the man himself:

A rare look into the deep end of me working at the Timeroom in Tucson, Arizona Timeroom studio in 2000. I designed and had the studio built in in the mid 90s and since moved to Baja AZ, below Tucson in the mid 2000's.
This was shot in cinéma vérité style by Fever Dreams collaborator William Merkle, this visual artifact presents a fascinating look into my working in the studio unseen until now. You will hear raw elements of Early Man, Fever Dreams, Blood Machine and Streams and Currents. This surreal look back in time with Linda and my beloved dogs Nala and Raven, the reliable and now departed messengers from between the worlds.

I do love this

1980’s - I worked @ Licorice Pizza Records on the Sunset strip in W. Hollywood. Many wild stories!

At this time, I played solo synth concerts in clubs & theaters all over S. CA. & was in a synth trio, Moebius, that played in new wave & punk clubs. #electronicmusic #ambient pic.twitter.com/Ea5VMVqvX1

— Steve Roach Official (@steve_timeroom) September 15, 2021

I like to imagine Brad time travelling to go buy records from him.

I wonder if he did any gigs with Wall of Voodoo or The Screamers/Nervous Gender?

In an alternate universe, I travel to Arizona, take peyote and watch him perform in a desert for like two days.

Great wisdom

So over at Shfl I figured it was time to create an at-least initial guide to the good man's work:

https://theshfl.com/guide/steve-roach

ah excellent. Dynamic Stillness sounds intriguing.

First public live show since the start of the pandemic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWXlt0s1mqI

Pretty fantastic, that.

Spirit Dome has induced an altered state of consciousness in me more than once.

I just found this 24-7 Immersion Zone channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L0TWU7Altc

It is a lovely resource

So Steve and Robert Rich are doing a joint show in Tucson in the near future:

https://dice.fm/event/yekrr-steve-roachs-ambient-lounge-robert-rich-5th-dec-the-century-room-tucson-tickets

Meantime, live dates in March and April including Grace Cathedral here in SF, this’ll be great.

https://linktr.ee/ageofreflections

Been sitting on this news for a while but I'm thrilled to say that for my debut in The Wire I did an extensive interview with Steve the other month, over two hours. I hope I've created a bit of a definitive profile for him as a result -- at least at this stage! I learned a heck of a lot in the conversation.

https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/482

assume his next CD will be a remix of the interview

Astounding

It's a really good piece. I've yet to explore his work because there's just so goddamn much of it, but the bits about his friendship with/admiration of Schulze definitely make me want to dive in. I'll start with Structures From Silence and see where that leads me.

structures from silence absolutely slaps

His music really clicked for me when I learned that his studio is in Tucson. Its a nice translation of the feeling I had when I lived there and would drive home up into the mountains at dawn with my ears ringing from a warehouse show.

My copy just arrived and I'm very much looking forward to reading this. I came to him via being really into Jorge Reyes which led me to Suspended Memories and then to SR's solo work, though I feel I have only scratched the surface of his discography.

structures from silence so beautiful, i think i've begun dabbling in others but really need to amp that up

Projekt records are a good follow on bandcamp as most of the back catalogue is on name your price costs.

which means its easier to drop £1-5 on a digital download, Structures from Silence is still a great start.

His 2021 Michael Stearns collab is recommended.

structures from silence absolutely slaps

I'm not sure that's the right word in this case. "Structures from Silence absolutely gently brushes your cheek"?

lol

Quick note for any Bay Area friends that I have guest list space for Roach's Grace Cathedral show this Saturday -- give me a shout if you're interested!

Alas, already bought my tix, see you there

Looking forward!

Phew, great performance last night indeed, we had a mini ILX coffee klatch in the back with lukas, beard papa and myself. A wonderful two hour trip.

Well damn, missed this thread and went to the show last night, it was absolutely fantastic!

Yeah remarkably compelling over that two hours. He seems to know what he's doing.

The projected lighting was one of the more beautiful accompaniments to a show I've ever seen, and that's saying something. Seemed like Roach performed a bunch of stuff spanning his career then ended on Structures From Silence.

He mentioned in a quick email to me that they loaded in at 10 am and worked to get the sound right up through 5:45 pm — all time worth spending, you could feel that all the way to the back where we were at!

I wasn't even on anything for that show and the visuals made me feel like I was hallucinating so I had to close my eyes for a lot of the performance. What a great show.

Truly! Had some thoughts:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/some-weekly-111-102230898

Hah, I was listening for the "gentle fanfare" too.

Real fun new release from him -- it's his set opening for Blood Incantation at their record release show in Boulder:

https://steveroach.bandcamp.com/album/crossing-the-bridge-live-in-boulder

As he says, basically the idea was to take folks on a trip in a concentrated hour-long space for a crowd that would hopefully be receptive but not necessarily familiar with him. I remember him talking about becoming friends with them when we did our Wire interview and it was great to see that this had happened!

he took the stage with Pallbearer last night in Tucson, playing some didgeridoo.

oops not last night, it was a few days ago.

Steve's hanging in the live chat for the listening party for the new album, just started a few minutes ago (gorgeous stuff btw)

https://steveroach.bandcamp.com/live/the-reverent-sky-listening-party

also, JMK interview recently published: https://toneglow.substack.com/p/tone-glow-180-steve-roach

anyone seen "Life in the Soundcurrent"?

New album indeed great, was listening to it earlier.

anyone seen "Life in the Soundcurrent"?

Yup, watched it in advance of the big Wire interview I did with him -- he kindly sent a private link. Good little overview, it doesn't delve into everything and anything -- just an hour long -- but it's a solid portrait of a particular artist in his moment, and really 'places' him in where he lives and works.

Blood Incantation guitarist has just released a CD of ambient 70s synth/guitar Jams on Projekt Records.

No Vinyl, but name your own price this weekend...

This is like the drone equivalent of Led Zep and Sabbath playing a double bill.

William Basinski & Steve Roach
May 1, 2026 - Tucson

Anyone from ILM that goes, please report.

My 83 year old dad lives in Tucson. Last year I mentioned that Steve Roach lives in Tucson too, and he told me he saw him and a bunch of other electronic artists live at a six hour shoe at Club Congress. There is apparently some overlap between the archery community and the ambient music community.

Hahah amazing. Anyway tell your dad to go that show for me.