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ROACH, STEVE 
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MAGNIFICANT VOID

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

8 tracks of seriously drifting, atmospheric, amorphous space synth music that doesn't come much better! If you want just one an album of exotic synth layers that flows slowly and really does invoke images of the subject matter it is attempting to convey, then look no further than this near seventy minute trip through the cosmos.

218409

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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MIDNIGHT MOON

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

“A stunning recording of quietly moving sound worlds – A seventy-three minute, 7 track collection of haunting, minimal, deep-of-night, mood drenched pieces” the sleeve insert proclaims. A cosmic music album – no surprises there then! Ah, but this one‘s different, especially for Steve, as it’s created entirely on processed electric guitar, e-bow and fretless bass, and the results are just astounding! In many ways, it’s typically Steve Roach in construction, but the textures and soundscapes are wholly unlike any other Roach album I’ve heard. On the near twenty-two minute ‘Midnight Loom’, the layers just ebb and flow like decelerated waves on a moonlit shore, with chords and textures cascading gently in a warm breeze, hanging in the air almost motionless, outside of time and space, totally hypnotic in its effect. You’ll also hear the deepest of bass rumbles witnessed on any Roach album to date, allied to dark, eerie organic electronic sounding textures that have a certain air of menace, again not something you’ll find in much of his previous work. The soundscapes are so deep and mysterious that, when turned up loud (the best way to enjoy this album), they fill the room with grandeur, and with the lights turned out; it is a positively spiritual experience. Over seventy-three minutes of music, this is dark, cosmic with bass and guitar chords, resonant rumbles, flowing layers, sounds hanging suspended in the firmament and as gorgeous a set of musical richness as it comes.

330093

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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NOW & TRAVELLER (2-ON-1)

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

The first two Steve Roach albums on one CD! Taking the first: ‘Now’, it is clear that with hindsight, this set of 5 tracks paved the way, in miniature, for the array of styles that were to follow and blossom in much greater detail across a wide, varied and consistently great set of albums. So, in the 5 tracks, you find sequencer music, melodic rhythmic music, dark cosmic music, lighter drifting space music and some more richly textured. The final track is a really optimistic slice of melodic/rhythmic delicacy with a sonorous lead synth layer on top of gently swaying electro-percussive rhythms. The relative primitiveness of it all actually sounds pretty darned fine too, illustrating his strength as a composer and evoker of moods, way back at the beginning of it all. The 9 tracks on ‘Traveller’ are predominantly rhythmic, including the classic Teutonic style sequencer lines, rolling drums, swirling synth swoops and synths on the superb eight minute title track. The rest ranges from some fairly lightweight sets of melodies and rhythms, but treated in a way as to be constantly engaging, to the more solid rhythm bases on which some delightful melodies soar and dive, and all are largely taken at a reasonable pace. With only a couple of shorter cosmic tracks, this album still sounds good today, offering a neat glimpse of a musician working within the confines of a tighter musical framework and making it work.

446580

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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ON THIS PLANET

CLASSIC (SYNTH)

Seventy-two minutes of the finest of Roach music on an album of material recorded live-in-the-studio. The album features guest spots from Patrick O’ Hearn on bass guitar, Roger King on pulse bass and Omar Faruk Tekbilek on bandir, darbuka & baglama, and it is one of Roach’s darkest albums to date. Vast panoramic views are portrayed by keyboards generating an array of sounds and textures that range from powerfully cosmic to exotic, and when they are merged with booming drums/percussion/sample layers and native-American Indian samples they can turn into scalding cauldrons of hot electro-percussive intensity. Even when the mood is more tranquil the feel is still quite heavy, as waves of dark celestial keyboard layers and haunting samples evoke images of stark landscapes overshadowed by bleak skies filled with rumbling storm clouds. Each of the 10 tracks cross-fade into each other and some are quite lengthy pieces that clock up to the ten and fourteen-minute mark at their longest.

656987

Weight: 150.00 g

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ROACH, STEVE 
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ORIGINS

WORLD MUSIC (SYNTH)

Ideally, this should be purchased together with the ‘Artifacts’ album, not because we want to relieve you of all your money, but because they really are companion pieces. ‘Origins’ is where our hero goes all ethnic and Australian on us, using the percussion, drums, didge and flute, albeit processed in some places, as the main lead sound textures, with his synths kept more to a textural filler type of role than anything else. This CD is notable mainly for the variety of the sounds that it introduces, with a wide sonic range from high to low chord structures being created across an array of electronic, acoustic and drummed instruments. Providing you like the sounds and structures that combine with the traditional spacey synth flow and give ‘Origins’ its solidity, then this album will appeal to you, and, if you partner it with ‘Artifacts’ you will have one predominantly acoustic and one predominantly electronic album in terms of the leading layers and textures, showcasing the two faces of one seriously talented musician.

796711

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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PURE FLOW:TIMEROOM EDITIONS-COLLECTION 1

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

A collection of atmospheric soundscapes taken from assorted albums of recent times, plus a previously unreleased track, in all over seventy minutes of flowing cosmic music that works as a treat both as a listening experience and as a useful introduction for anyone who’s not familiar with the last few, and quite frankly indispensable, albums from the synth master himself, including tracks from ‘Atmospheric Conditions’, ‘Slow Heat’, Truth & Beauty’, ‘Vine-Bark & Spore’ and ‘Dream Circle’. Overall, this is a most beautiful album.

719268

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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QUIET MUSIC (ORIG. SELECTION FROM CASSETTE ALBUMS)

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

This is the original issue of this album - a 'highlights' single CD featuring tracks selected from the three original cassette-only releases, and as an alternative to the more expensive ‘Complete’ double edition, it is still a superb example of class rhythm-less synth textures and flowing musical eloquence!

985749

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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QUIET MUSIC-THE COMPLETE EDITION (2CD)

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

For some reason, this was originally issued as a 'highlights' single CD from the three original cassette-only releases. Now at last, the entire set been remastered and restored to its original size, featuring all the music from all three tapes across two excellent CD's. This represents some of Roach’s his most drifting and yet most exquisite space/cosmic music voyages, which, with tracks from three minutes to half an hour, more than manages to capture your full attention, warm your heart and keep you transfixed for the duration. A superb example of class rhythm-less synth textures and flowing musical eloquence!

947273

Weight: 250.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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SLOW HEAT

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

The sounds are full, soothing and fly sky-high. The 'Slow Heat' spreads over you like the emerging desert sun from the start of early sunrise, as the beauty and glow of the single seventy-minute piece slowly washes over you with an intensity that befits the warm environments that inspired the music. In anyone's book of space music explorations, this is a stunner.

853843

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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STORMWARNING (LIVE)

RHYTHMIC/MELODIC (SYNTH)

Reissued, remastered, with sleeves personally autographed by Steve Roach and the inclusion of a twenty-one minute bonus ‘live’ track, this really is a great buy. We hear 3 long tracks recorded ‘live’ in concert (although you'd never know it from the pristine sound quality) in 1985, 1987 & 1991. Musically the tracks are very much more along the lines of the ‘Empetus’ album with pulsating synth rhythms and sequencers to the fore. However, the musical landscape as a whole, despite the fact that it contains no overdubs and you hear exactly what was played at the time, seems a good deal more varied and layered than on that particular studio album. Track 1 starts out all spacey and cosmic and then goes into a rhythmic universe, while track 2 starts out rhythmic and continues in that vein, sounding like Tangerine Dream on speed, with some great wailing synth solos soaring high above the field of fast sequencers and solid backdrops. This carries on for practically the whole of its thirty-minute running time, only subsiding to space synths alone at around five minutes from its close, with dying rhythms echoing away in the background. Finally, the bonus twenty-one minute epic from 1991 could almost be Klaus Schulze - It's structurally and sound-wise, very close - and comes across as an essential listen for anyone into the music of the big German pioneer of the electronic music world. Galloping, solid synth/percussion rhythms, sinuous trademark synth solos and ethereal backdrops all build, layer upon layer and soar as the piece develops into what is the finest track on the album. So, here we have three relatively different, yet strongly linked thematic faces of the rhythmic Steve Roach at work, and it is a successful and extremely enjoyable an album as he has done.

917166

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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STREAMS & CURRENTS (USA)

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

Apart from six minutes of stereo-split-echoed percussive backdrops on the twenty-eight minute ‘Spirit Moves’ track, this is a Roach cosmic music classic. However, unlike ‘Slow Heat’ or ‘Quiet Music’, this one has an altogether different texture and feel to its soundscapes. Sure, it’s still full of vast-sounding spacious cosmic synths, and it’s quite dark too, but also present are extra textures as though a shimmering guitar layer was there by virtue of the synth resonance, causing its strings to vibrate and gliss. In other words, it’s a very subtle effect, but it makes such a difference to the overall sound, particularly evident in that gorgeous giant epic second track. The music flows and travels quiet slowly, but always changing shape as it goes, never at any time letting your attention wander. There is so much depth to the sounds that you spend the first two or three plays just soaking in the richness of it all before the real effect starts to kick in. It is one organic entity of extraordinarily gorgeous beauty, with a strong purpose and solid structure, played with great commitment and a highly charged emotional level. Steve Roach just goes from strength to strength with each new release, and this is no exception.

755652

Weight: 150.00 g


ROACH, STEVE 
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STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE (REMASTERED VERSION)

SPACE/COSMIC (SYNTH)

Nearly an hour long, just 3 tracks and the all-time classic of American space/cosmic music, here remastered for the first time, to sound cleaner and more crystal clear than ever before. This isn’t just a landmark of USA and beyond space synth music; it practically began space-synth music single-handed! This album became the blueprint from the early 80’s by which subsequent albums were judged, and many failed to live up to the giddy heights of this incredible album. The highlight of the three long tracks is undoubtedly the near thirty-minute title track that remains to this very day, as one of the most sublime pieces of cosmic synths music that you’ll hear. The title alone sums it up, as slowly unfolding layers of warm, gentle and exotic synths create an atmosphere that in minimal and drifting, yet totally cosmic – It just hangs in the air around you and bathes the room with velvet sound waves with just a hint of melody and relaxing to the point that you become spellbound by its magic.

593735

Weight: 150.00 g