It has to be said that the drumming (from two percussionists) on this album is, in my opinion, the greatest drumming I’ve EVER heard on a synth music album, and worth the price of admission alone! Over seventy minutes of prime Roach multi-textured, multi-layered synths music, with the added ingredient of soundscaping guitar work from no less a musician than Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame for several tracks. It is one wicked album where, on most of the few lengthy tracks, the presence of two drummers signals is just the most awesome thing, even for Steve Roach! The drum parts are so spectacular they send shivers up my spine every time I play the CD, and the combination of these and the synths soundscapes is nothing less than utterly spellbinding. The drumming has this immense tribal resonance to it, sounding more like hand drumming than a kit, and the effect overall is simply jaw-dropping. So, add together these elements of cosmic splendour that spread out panoramic proportions, with mighty drumming passages and added textures from synth-sounding guitars, and you have one of the most incredible albums to come out of synth music in years, and one of the best ever CD’s out of a master musician, Steve Roach – perfection and then some!

914713
Weight: 150.00 g

Despite this being a collection of 10 lengthy tracks that “never made it first time around”, this is an absolutely amazing album, even by Steve Roach standards! There is a meeting of analogue warmth and deep penetrating darkness the likes of which you’ll have rarely heard. With towering clouds of cosmic synths that are richly textured and far-reaching, you hear undercurrents of deep bass atmospherics, and when, on several tracks, the African-sounding drums slowly but strongly kick in, the whole thing seems to lift on to an altogether higher spiritual plain. Yet there’s still that sense of vastness to it all, that feeling of space, in an album that’s slowly rhythmic in the main, and it’s this meeting of feelings, the mix of layers and the brooding, simmering intensity allied to the galaxian spans that the music covers, that makes this one of the most underrated and finest albums of his output to date.

919871
Weight: 150.00 g

This double album can be seen as a mighty accomplishment, with one CD of 10 shorter tracks spanning sixty-seven minutes and one with yet another hour-long towering inferno of gorgeous cosmic synth music. The whole album possesses a kind of quietly mystic quality, more varied on the first CD with more of a melodic sensibility and consistent throughout. Again, both are quite superb multi-textured, multi-layered albums that drift effortlessly by, managing to be interesting, enjoyable and totally relaxing.

141399
Weight: 250.00 g

Nearly two and a half hours of music from this duo, playing a mix of primarily synths and percussion instruments, and it is an album that is positively overflowing with textural support from guest musicians like: Vidna Obmana, Vir Unis, Joreg Reyes, Jeffrey Fayman, Jim Cole, Vicki Richards, Lena Stevens & Momodou Kah. As you might have gathered from the intro this is a return the more percussive side of the sonic spectrum and that makes this a truly incredible album. The sheer variety, array and arrangements of the drums and synths across compositions long and short, giving the mix of celestial and rhythmic space music, an edge and depth that is simply quite stunning indeed. Rarely has what amounts to ethnic electronic style ambience sounded so magical as this. Despite the fact that the percussion section tends to take equal centre stage with the electronics, as a synth music fan you wouldn’t have expected to hear such a spellbinding album, one that has you hooked from start to finish – somehow having an almost organic quality that draws you, siren-style, hypnotically to discover what delights lie in store as the tracks progress, all very spiritual and masterfully played, produced, mixed and arranged. The really remarkable thing is just how many layers and textures are going on throughout, with the pace largely languid but strong, although the acceleration and stereo-effect layers of synth and percussion on ‘Offering In Waves’ almost takes you back to things such as ‘Stormwarning’ and ‘On This Planet’ in terms of the feel of the music. This opener to disc2, is followed by the most celestial track on the album, and then that is succeeded by a twenty-three minute piece recorded live in the studio by Roach & Reyes, with Metcalf adding percussion later on. The piece is celestial music like you’ve rarely witnessed on a Roach album, with treated choral voice, slow thunderous percussion, wind-waves of synths and lush flowing electronic textures that all build quite superbly into a virtual sonic maelstrom of epic proportions. Overall, as long as you like drums and percussion, this is just fantastic!

701578
Weight: 250.00 g

The meeting of two like-minded souls, one more known for his unorthodox melds of percussion, drums, electronics and ethnic music, the other for a vast galaxy of synth soundscapes. Both musicians take the best and most liquid parts of their musical worlds, to produce a set of tracks, from two to nineteen minutes long, that give cosmic/space-derived music a whole new identity. There is also a real sense of being here, as all sorts of new textures, sounds and layers are hidden and then rise just above the unfolding panoramas of multi-layered synths and gentle percussives. Anyone into Steve Roach’s music in particular, who wants it cosmic, but doesn’t mind it being a bit more heavily flavoured than usual, plus wants something new to what has gone before, should try this album out.

332529
Weight: 150.00 g

Sometimes there's an air of mystery to the actual release let alone the music. This started life as a trio album but the Burmer solo tracks were removed, one of the Roach tracks was expanded to a massive twenty-two minutes, and Brennan's name was added as a collaborator with Roach on two of the tracks when he was actually there all the time on the original IC Issue, but never credited. The title track remains credited to the Roach, Braheny & Burmer trio. Bizarre! Anyway, what we ended up with is still one of the best ever melodic space music albums of the last 20 years, and I stress the 'melodic' bit, because, while there aren't any actual tunes as such, this is not your typical floating, amorphous, abstract space music either. Throughout the albums 7 tracks/sixty-nine minutes, you will find a range of sounds and tones from the mournful violin-like lead of the Braheny and Braheny/Roach tracks through to the atmospheric synth music so magnificently produced on Roach's tracks. The slowly building twenty-two minute epic that is Roach's ‘In The Heat Of Venus’ is a monumental track that develops into a towering set of gentle but dynamic synth rhythms and layers of drums and percussion that lays underneath the heights scaled by the soaring keyboard surrounds. The title track in the only trio piece now and it ends the album in a beautiful and warming manner. This is an album that has got a real heart and it remains to this day in a class of its own.

796709
Weight: 150.00 g

With this hallucinogenic masterwork from the Roach & Rich team, the evolution of "somadelic" music continued at a high level in the early part of the 1990’s. If you like that kind of thing, then it's all here, tribal grooves, organic sound-worlds, rich harmonic formations and breathy melodic flutes, all blending effortlessly on the 8 tracks that are ‘Soma’.

198443
Weight: 150.00 g

A tribal-ambient cornerstone album where the “electronic and acoustic lines start to blur”. Roach and Rich bring the best out of each other's talents on this important collaboration, as they create 10 sound collages using an array of ethnic and electronic drums and flutes. “Expansive atmospheres of searing beauty only start to describe this music”.

144094
Weight: 150.00 g

First and foremost a cosmic music album, but with added musical elements that are unusual for a Steve Roach album. These come from gorgeous slide and echoed guitar textures, occasional deep rumbling electric bass and percussion, all used for extra textural effect rather than any rhythmic role. The end result is overall one of a slightly dark, haunting ambience that is somehow threatening, yet addictive at the same time. The mainstay of the soundscapes are the synths and electronics which soar and drift in an array of settings, carefully arranging and crafting the other instruments as part of the delicate but dynamic soundstages. The music has great depth to it and is very atmospheric - One that reveals new pleasures with every play and, most importantly, one you won't tire of hearing in a hurry, simply by virtue of its variation and originality in the cosmic music genre.

741814
Weight: 150.00 g

This seventy-seven minute DVD in NTSC, all region playback format is a really engaging audio-visual odyssey that you won’t forget in a hurry. With footage collated over a three year time period by USA filmmaker Steve Lazur, this features the expansive landscapes of the American southwest desert, as you have never seen them before. Fantastic time-lapse and slow motion photographic techniques merge with real-time movement though landscapes so surreal they draw viewers into an alternative universe that nonetheless exists right here on this planet. This is visual poetry to match Roach’s evocative, atmospheric sound worlds. It captures the most remote natural wonders of the American west, where turbulent cloud formations hover over sun-scorched canyons, and epic rock sculptures grant reluctant entrance to vistas still echoing from the dawn of creation. The music can be acquired independently of the DVD if you buy the ‘Day Out Of Time’ album by Steve Roach, but if you want the full-blown audio-visual experience, it’s this DVD you need. Please remember to ensure your DVD player can handle NTSC formatted discs before ordering.

646900
Weight: 150.00 g

This is a very special release that is unlike anything else in the Steve Roach catalogue! It is a collection of solo Tibetan prayers that are enhanced by Roach’s electronic atmospheres and soundscapes. The CD was recorded in his Timeroom studios during a brief visit from Thupten in the later part of the 90’s. Roach completed the project during the first 18 days of 2000, by holding a vigil in the studio and creating this sacred space for the 500-year-old prayers that express reverence, deep resonation, and compassion.

411282
Weight: 150.00 g

CLASS - both in musical quality and packaging! Lavishly assembled in card sleeves and then housed in a solid CD-sized black box, this set features music that is nothing short of sensational. Disc 1 features a single seventy-one minute track of gorgeous, rhythm-free, drifting, heavenly and flowing multi-synth layers that are very atmospheric and enjoyable listen. Disc 2 introduces occasional percussion/synth rhythms but nothing to detract from the reflective atmosphere created for the ever-evolving travels of the beautifully played synth passages. Disc 3 features a seventy-two minute track that should more than carry on the feelings and musical eloquence of the first two, making this set, one of the essential cosmic music purchases. Another winner from both musicians!

851252
Weight: 350.00 g