Hello, today the first posting in the 3rd series of Steve Roach's impressive discography we've reached 2001 and all things going well expect a 4th series in years to come. On the corona front there's no good news, things are getting worse and I wonder how long the medical personal can cope with what looks like increasing pressures, after all this is over they will need a lot of support and not just financial. So today we start with a prayer to the protector...
Today's Artist is a longstanding leader in contemporary electronic music, composer and multi-instrumentalist,a onetime professional motorbike racer born 1955 in La Mesa, California, drew on the beauty and power of the earth's landscapes to create lush, meditative soundscapes influential on the emergence of ambient and trance. Drawing from a vast, unique, deeply personal authenticity, his releases cover a wide range of dynamic styles all of which bear his signature voice. For 35 years the boundaries are constantly challenged in his work, ranging in style from pure floating spaces, analog sequencer music, primordial tribal, rhythmic ambient, dark ambient, long-form 'drift ambient,' and avant garde atonal ambient.....N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
A longstanding leader in contemporary electronic music, composer and multi-instrumentalist Steve Roach drew on the beauty and power of the Earth's landscapes to create lush, meditative soundscapes influential on the emergence of ambient and trance. Born in California in 1955, Roach -- inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis -- taught himself to play synthesizer at the age of 20. Debuting in 1982 with the album Now, his early work was quite reminiscent of his inspirations, but with 1984's Structures from Silence, his music began taking enormous strides. The album's expansive and mysterious atmosphere was partly inspired by the natural beauty of the southwestern U.S. Subsequent works, including 1986's three-volume Quiet Music series honed Roach's approach, his dense, swirling textures and hypnotic rhythms akin to environmental sound sculptures.
In 1988, inspired by the Peter Weir film The Last Wave, Roach journeyed to the Australian outback, with field recordings of aboriginal life inspiring his acknowledged masterpiece, the double-album Dreamtime Return. A year later, he teamed with percussionist Michael Shrieve and guitarist David Torn for The Leaving Time, an experiment in ambient jazz. After relocating to the desert outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, Roach established his own recording studio, Timeroom. In the years to follow, he grew increasingly prolific, creating both as a solo artist and in tandem with acts including Robert Rich, Michael Stearns, Jorge Reyes, and Kevin Braheny -- in all, he recorded close to two-dozen major works in the '90s alone, all of them located at different points on the space-time continuum separating modern technology and primitive music.
His album roster from that decade includes Strata (1991), Artifacts (1994), Well of Souls (1995), Amplexus (1997), and Dust to Dust (1998). Early Man was released on Projekt in early 2001, followed by one of his many collaborations with Vidna Obmana, Innerzone. Throughout the remainder of the 2000s, Roach remained extremely prolific. His release schedule included the Projekt titles Trance Spirits (with Jeffrey Fayman) and the quadruple-disc Mystic Chords & Sacred Spaces, Spirit Dome and Somewhere Else (with Obmana), Fever Dreams, Mantram, and Nada Terma (with Byron Metcalf and Mark Seelig), and the ongoing Immersion series, Arc of Passion, and Stream of Thought (with Erik Wøllo). He also self-released several titles on his own through Timeroom Editions.
Over the next decade, Roach would show no signs of slowing as he continued with a non-stop slew of new material under his own name, as well as collaborations and soundtrack work. Though new volumes of work appeared at a clip of more than three albums per year, standouts included more collaborations with Byron Metcalf, 2013's Future Flows, 2014's disparate releases of arid road trip music on The Desert Collection and ambient explorations of mortality and humanity on The Delicate Forever. Roach began constructing an extensive analog modular synthesizer system in 2014, and in 2015, the album Skeleton Keys was composed entirely using this setup. In 2016, Roach released two full-lengths with Robert Logan (the more rhythmic Biosonic and the serene drone album Second Nature), as well as solo efforts This Place to Be and Shadow of Time.
In concert, Steve creates transcendent electronic music emerging from an elemental instinctual mode. These events bring together an audience from around the country and as far away as Europe, all looking to experience the on-the-edge experience that erupts in the live setting. This makes Steve's concerts an entirely different experience from the recorded medium. With months of preparation absorbed into his system, evocative soundscapes blend with ecstatic rhythmic sections born from hands-on analog sound creation and sonic shapeshifting. The result is a direct transference of creative energy from the artist through his instruments out to the listener. Live performances are the place where Steve's music thrives, created at the leading edge of now.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The relationship between Thupten Nyandak Pema Lama and Celestial Harmonies goes back to the mid-eighties when producer David Parsons recorded the first album by the monks of the Dip Tse Chok Ling Monastery in Dharamsala, India, for Fortuna Records, Sacred Ceremonies. At the time of this writing, there are three volumes in the Sacred Ceremonies series, with more in various planning stages. The recordings have been well received by a wide audience in many countries, from lay people interested in Buddhist culture to followers of the religion to listeners like director Bernardo Bertolucci who used some of their chants in 'Little Buddha'. Likewise, Steve Roach's relationship with Fortuna Records and thus Celestial Harmonies goes back to the mid-eighties, and Roach has since assembled a veritable catalogue of recordings in his inimitable style of electronic and acoustic/electronic music.
It therefore came as no surprise that Thupten thought of visiting Tucson, Arizona, and spending the night at Steve's house (cum recording studio) on the outskirts of Tucson. During that visit in 1996 the chant portion of the present recording was made, having been inspired by Thupten's daily chanting of prayers from the Lama Chöpa, (also known as Guru Puja in sanskrit), and essential compendium of daily prayers for Tibetan buddhists.
"In Paris, I heard a recording of Tibetan singing with this more modern music, and I thought someday I would like to do this myself," Thupten said almost immediately. Steve set up a microphone and Thupten proceeded to sing from the Lama Chöpa that he carries with him wherever he goes. Some of these chants are devotions to the gurus and deities who assist seekers on the path to enlightenment. Others are PRAYERS TO THE PROTECTORs who deflect evil influences and cleanse the world of imbalances, negative emotions and ego-driven states of mind. The chants, which are sung formally at the monastery by all the monks twice a month, are an integral part of the individual's practice. Thupten told us that he recites these prayers alone at least once a day, sometimes letting them flow silently through his mind, other times feeling the compassion and strength they provide rising from his own voice. He sang his favorites during that impromptu session in the Timeroom. An hour later, after he closed his prayer book and recorded a brief interview, it was time for him to go. While there is an enduring quality of great power and comfort in these age-old chants, Thupten Pema Lama felt that Westerners and young monks taking the tradition into the 21st century would benefit from hearing them in an updated setting.
For Steve, it was an unexpected challenge: from the afternoon of December 31, 1999 through the first 18 days of 2000, he held vigil in the Timeroom, creating a sacred sonic space worthy of supporting, and at certain moments amplifying, the feelings of devotion, compassion, protection and unfathomable mystery resonating throughout Thupten's recitations. "When the chants were originally recorded, Thupten and I talked about how we could bring them to the West in a context of clear and direct understatement," Steve remembers. "I waited for the right moment to bring my own soundworlds into the picture, for a time when I was ready to devote myself to the task with the reverence it deserved. During those first weeks of a most auspicious new year, I absorbed Thupten's chants from day into night, adding sounds from the deep well of inspiration these ancient chants inspired in me, stripping away what was unecessary until finally the circle was complete. Considering the way in which the initial idea practically came knocking on my door, and the place I had to go in myself to contribute to the project, Prayers to the Protector is for me a very special release."
Steve Roach - Prayers to the Protector (flac 242mb)
01 Gyab Do (Refuge Prayer For All Sentient Beings) / Ganden Lhagya (Prayer For Tsonkhapa, The Founder Of The Gelugpa Sect) 2:08
02 Dechen Ngangle Rangnyi Lama Le (Blessing Of The Place Of Meditation) 15:01
03 Djew Takgya Lingchee Lhunbur Dje (Prayer For The World Or Planet) 8:48
04 Tokme Dune Meeke Dikbeele (Purification Prayer To Dissolve All Sins Committed In Past Lives) 8:32
05 Prayer To The Protector (Instrumental) 4:58
06 Yonden Jungne Tsultrim Gyatso Dje (Prayer To Wisdom, To Knowledge And Religious Vows) 13:57
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
This second Timeroom Editions release flows with a prime collection of lost pieces from the Dreamtime Return period up to 1998. Some of the pieces have appeared on multi-artist samplers, while others have been gathered for this special release. Truth & Beauty creates a connected story line, which seems to fit together like the soundtrack to an imaginary film.
Steve Roach - Truth & Beauty (The Lost Pieces Vol.2) (flac 349mb)
01 Aftermath 9:11
02 The Majestic Void 5:36
03 Fall of the Moai 1:53
04 Earthman 9:44
05 Fate Awaits 8:29
06 Beyond the Blood 5:15
07 Before the Sacrifice 6:51
08 The Unreachable Place (Again) 9:38
09 The Unbroken Promise 7:50
10 This and the Other 11:20
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Core is dynamic convergence of Steve's most essential organic, electronic, rhythmic and atmospheric elements, making this a stand-out solo release. The Summer of 2001 was a time of renewal as Roach turned away from all concerts, collaborations and other offers, directing his focus deep into the heart of this powerful journey, back to the core. 100% pure Steve Roach music. Created at the crossroads blending his various genre-bending phases of elegant futurism, tribal-ambient, classic sequencer trance and modern electronica. Rhythmically activated and spatially charged, Core is a seductively original work of art. Richly textured with imaginative sounds, samples and dynamics from crunchingly intense rhythms to ethereal images, Roach continues to tear down the style barriers with this eclectic masterpiece. "Core Meditation" as well as the other eleven compositions on Core fuse elements of shamanic ritual, electronic, experimental, and ethno-ambient into an engaging ecstatic matrix.
Steve Roach - Core (flac 412mb)
01 Way of Now 3:50
02 Wings of Icarus 7:40
03 Train of Thought 5:52
04 Resonation Revelation 6:55
05 Core Meditation 4:24
06 So It Goes... 10:06
07 Endorphine Dreamtime 8:50
08 Hyperportal 11:57
09 Indigo Yearning 4:25
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Streams and Currents creates a sanctuary that is rarely found in today's music. The perfect atmosphere for contemplation and dreaming with eyes open, imbued with an ephemeral quality that seems to linger at the edge of conscious perception, creating an introspective, enveloping flow of mood-altering pieces. The album progresses into deeper, darker, warmer, and quieter zones, towards a beautiful submerged ending. Do not expect jangly chords or ripping riffs, however, for Roach has filtered this guitarwork through a series of sound processors, rendering the strings into languid soundscapes that undulate timelessly through the air. These delicate tonalities drift like somber dust motes on aerial currents, guided into elongated harmonies by Roach's masterful ability to derive structure from sounds that teeter on the brink of silence.
For all its passive qualities, this music possesses an undercurrent of vitality. These calming aural moods are dense with seemingly endless textures and soothing drones, but their softness is subtly alive with a subdued agitation accountable to their guitar origins. While "pure" electronics display an unearthly resonance, in Roach's expert hands the guitar proves itself to be just as capable of filling the air with ethereal sound. Where others may be satisfied to compile passages of raw scrapings and dreamy strumming, Roach treats the output of his guitars like an assortment of airborne mists, guiding these sonic vapors into introspective currents whose elegant contortions smoothly traverse space and time to generate a timeless zone of infinite expanse. For the album's epic piece, "Spirit Moves", a mantra beat has been added to the haunting strains, delivering the composition from higher atmospherics into realms that exhibit more humanity and substance. This quasi-tribal percussive presence is utilized only for the beginning of this 28 minute track, allowing moodiness to resume control of the patient flow.
Steve Roach - Streams and Currents (flac 230mb)
01 Present Moment 7:52
02 Spirit Moves 28:37
03 Slow Rising 14:38
04 Almost Touching 13:56
05 Ebb 4:52
06 Flow 4:00
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Today's Artist is a longstanding leader in contemporary electronic music, composer and multi-instrumentalist,a onetime professional motorbike racer born 1955 in La Mesa, California, drew on the beauty and power of the earth's landscapes to create lush, meditative soundscapes influential on the emergence of ambient and trance. Drawing from a vast, unique, deeply personal authenticity, his releases cover a wide range of dynamic styles all of which bear his signature voice. For 35 years the boundaries are constantly challenged in his work, ranging in style from pure floating spaces, analog sequencer music, primordial tribal, rhythmic ambient, dark ambient, long-form 'drift ambient,' and avant garde atonal ambient.....N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
A longstanding leader in contemporary electronic music, composer and multi-instrumentalist Steve Roach drew on the beauty and power of the Earth's landscapes to create lush, meditative soundscapes influential on the emergence of ambient and trance. Born in California in 1955, Roach -- inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis -- taught himself to play synthesizer at the age of 20. Debuting in 1982 with the album Now, his early work was quite reminiscent of his inspirations, but with 1984's Structures from Silence, his music began taking enormous strides. The album's expansive and mysterious atmosphere was partly inspired by the natural beauty of the southwestern U.S. Subsequent works, including 1986's three-volume Quiet Music series honed Roach's approach, his dense, swirling textures and hypnotic rhythms akin to environmental sound sculptures.
In 1988, inspired by the Peter Weir film The Last Wave, Roach journeyed to the Australian outback, with field recordings of aboriginal life inspiring his acknowledged masterpiece, the double-album Dreamtime Return. A year later, he teamed with percussionist Michael Shrieve and guitarist David Torn for The Leaving Time, an experiment in ambient jazz. After relocating to the desert outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, Roach established his own recording studio, Timeroom. In the years to follow, he grew increasingly prolific, creating both as a solo artist and in tandem with acts including Robert Rich, Michael Stearns, Jorge Reyes, and Kevin Braheny -- in all, he recorded close to two-dozen major works in the '90s alone, all of them located at different points on the space-time continuum separating modern technology and primitive music.
His album roster from that decade includes Strata (1991), Artifacts (1994), Well of Souls (1995), Amplexus (1997), and Dust to Dust (1998). Early Man was released on Projekt in early 2001, followed by one of his many collaborations with Vidna Obmana, Innerzone. Throughout the remainder of the 2000s, Roach remained extremely prolific. His release schedule included the Projekt titles Trance Spirits (with Jeffrey Fayman) and the quadruple-disc Mystic Chords & Sacred Spaces, Spirit Dome and Somewhere Else (with Obmana), Fever Dreams, Mantram, and Nada Terma (with Byron Metcalf and Mark Seelig), and the ongoing Immersion series, Arc of Passion, and Stream of Thought (with Erik Wøllo). He also self-released several titles on his own through Timeroom Editions.
Over the next decade, Roach would show no signs of slowing as he continued with a non-stop slew of new material under his own name, as well as collaborations and soundtrack work. Though new volumes of work appeared at a clip of more than three albums per year, standouts included more collaborations with Byron Metcalf, 2013's Future Flows, 2014's disparate releases of arid road trip music on The Desert Collection and ambient explorations of mortality and humanity on The Delicate Forever. Roach began constructing an extensive analog modular synthesizer system in 2014, and in 2015, the album Skeleton Keys was composed entirely using this setup. In 2016, Roach released two full-lengths with Robert Logan (the more rhythmic Biosonic and the serene drone album Second Nature), as well as solo efforts This Place to Be and Shadow of Time.
In concert, Steve creates transcendent electronic music emerging from an elemental instinctual mode. These events bring together an audience from around the country and as far away as Europe, all looking to experience the on-the-edge experience that erupts in the live setting. This makes Steve's concerts an entirely different experience from the recorded medium. With months of preparation absorbed into his system, evocative soundscapes blend with ecstatic rhythmic sections born from hands-on analog sound creation and sonic shapeshifting. The result is a direct transference of creative energy from the artist through his instruments out to the listener. Live performances are the place where Steve's music thrives, created at the leading edge of now.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The relationship between Thupten Nyandak Pema Lama and Celestial Harmonies goes back to the mid-eighties when producer David Parsons recorded the first album by the monks of the Dip Tse Chok Ling Monastery in Dharamsala, India, for Fortuna Records, Sacred Ceremonies. At the time of this writing, there are three volumes in the Sacred Ceremonies series, with more in various planning stages. The recordings have been well received by a wide audience in many countries, from lay people interested in Buddhist culture to followers of the religion to listeners like director Bernardo Bertolucci who used some of their chants in 'Little Buddha'. Likewise, Steve Roach's relationship with Fortuna Records and thus Celestial Harmonies goes back to the mid-eighties, and Roach has since assembled a veritable catalogue of recordings in his inimitable style of electronic and acoustic/electronic music.
It therefore came as no surprise that Thupten thought of visiting Tucson, Arizona, and spending the night at Steve's house (cum recording studio) on the outskirts of Tucson. During that visit in 1996 the chant portion of the present recording was made, having been inspired by Thupten's daily chanting of prayers from the Lama Chöpa, (also known as Guru Puja in sanskrit), and essential compendium of daily prayers for Tibetan buddhists.
"In Paris, I heard a recording of Tibetan singing with this more modern music, and I thought someday I would like to do this myself," Thupten said almost immediately. Steve set up a microphone and Thupten proceeded to sing from the Lama Chöpa that he carries with him wherever he goes. Some of these chants are devotions to the gurus and deities who assist seekers on the path to enlightenment. Others are PRAYERS TO THE PROTECTORs who deflect evil influences and cleanse the world of imbalances, negative emotions and ego-driven states of mind. The chants, which are sung formally at the monastery by all the monks twice a month, are an integral part of the individual's practice. Thupten told us that he recites these prayers alone at least once a day, sometimes letting them flow silently through his mind, other times feeling the compassion and strength they provide rising from his own voice. He sang his favorites during that impromptu session in the Timeroom. An hour later, after he closed his prayer book and recorded a brief interview, it was time for him to go. While there is an enduring quality of great power and comfort in these age-old chants, Thupten Pema Lama felt that Westerners and young monks taking the tradition into the 21st century would benefit from hearing them in an updated setting.
For Steve, it was an unexpected challenge: from the afternoon of December 31, 1999 through the first 18 days of 2000, he held vigil in the Timeroom, creating a sacred sonic space worthy of supporting, and at certain moments amplifying, the feelings of devotion, compassion, protection and unfathomable mystery resonating throughout Thupten's recitations. "When the chants were originally recorded, Thupten and I talked about how we could bring them to the West in a context of clear and direct understatement," Steve remembers. "I waited for the right moment to bring my own soundworlds into the picture, for a time when I was ready to devote myself to the task with the reverence it deserved. During those first weeks of a most auspicious new year, I absorbed Thupten's chants from day into night, adding sounds from the deep well of inspiration these ancient chants inspired in me, stripping away what was unecessary until finally the circle was complete. Considering the way in which the initial idea practically came knocking on my door, and the place I had to go in myself to contribute to the project, Prayers to the Protector is for me a very special release."
Steve Roach - Prayers to the Protector (flac 242mb)
01 Gyab Do (Refuge Prayer For All Sentient Beings) / Ganden Lhagya (Prayer For Tsonkhapa, The Founder Of The Gelugpa Sect) 2:08
02 Dechen Ngangle Rangnyi Lama Le (Blessing Of The Place Of Meditation) 15:01
03 Djew Takgya Lingchee Lhunbur Dje (Prayer For The World Or Planet) 8:48
04 Tokme Dune Meeke Dikbeele (Purification Prayer To Dissolve All Sins Committed In Past Lives) 8:32
05 Prayer To The Protector (Instrumental) 4:58
06 Yonden Jungne Tsultrim Gyatso Dje (Prayer To Wisdom, To Knowledge And Religious Vows) 13:57
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
This second Timeroom Editions release flows with a prime collection of lost pieces from the Dreamtime Return period up to 1998. Some of the pieces have appeared on multi-artist samplers, while others have been gathered for this special release. Truth & Beauty creates a connected story line, which seems to fit together like the soundtrack to an imaginary film.
Steve Roach - Truth & Beauty (The Lost Pieces Vol.2) (flac 349mb)
01 Aftermath 9:11
02 The Majestic Void 5:36
03 Fall of the Moai 1:53
04 Earthman 9:44
05 Fate Awaits 8:29
06 Beyond the Blood 5:15
07 Before the Sacrifice 6:51
08 The Unreachable Place (Again) 9:38
09 The Unbroken Promise 7:50
10 This and the Other 11:20
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Core is dynamic convergence of Steve's most essential organic, electronic, rhythmic and atmospheric elements, making this a stand-out solo release. The Summer of 2001 was a time of renewal as Roach turned away from all concerts, collaborations and other offers, directing his focus deep into the heart of this powerful journey, back to the core. 100% pure Steve Roach music. Created at the crossroads blending his various genre-bending phases of elegant futurism, tribal-ambient, classic sequencer trance and modern electronica. Rhythmically activated and spatially charged, Core is a seductively original work of art. Richly textured with imaginative sounds, samples and dynamics from crunchingly intense rhythms to ethereal images, Roach continues to tear down the style barriers with this eclectic masterpiece. "Core Meditation" as well as the other eleven compositions on Core fuse elements of shamanic ritual, electronic, experimental, and ethno-ambient into an engaging ecstatic matrix.
Steve Roach - Core (flac 412mb)
01 Way of Now 3:50
02 Wings of Icarus 7:40
03 Train of Thought 5:52
04 Resonation Revelation 6:55
05 Core Meditation 4:24
06 So It Goes... 10:06
07 Endorphine Dreamtime 8:50
08 Hyperportal 11:57
09 Indigo Yearning 4:25
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Streams and Currents creates a sanctuary that is rarely found in today's music. The perfect atmosphere for contemplation and dreaming with eyes open, imbued with an ephemeral quality that seems to linger at the edge of conscious perception, creating an introspective, enveloping flow of mood-altering pieces. The album progresses into deeper, darker, warmer, and quieter zones, towards a beautiful submerged ending. Do not expect jangly chords or ripping riffs, however, for Roach has filtered this guitarwork through a series of sound processors, rendering the strings into languid soundscapes that undulate timelessly through the air. These delicate tonalities drift like somber dust motes on aerial currents, guided into elongated harmonies by Roach's masterful ability to derive structure from sounds that teeter on the brink of silence.
For all its passive qualities, this music possesses an undercurrent of vitality. These calming aural moods are dense with seemingly endless textures and soothing drones, but their softness is subtly alive with a subdued agitation accountable to their guitar origins. While "pure" electronics display an unearthly resonance, in Roach's expert hands the guitar proves itself to be just as capable of filling the air with ethereal sound. Where others may be satisfied to compile passages of raw scrapings and dreamy strumming, Roach treats the output of his guitars like an assortment of airborne mists, guiding these sonic vapors into introspective currents whose elegant contortions smoothly traverse space and time to generate a timeless zone of infinite expanse. For the album's epic piece, "Spirit Moves", a mantra beat has been added to the haunting strains, delivering the composition from higher atmospherics into realms that exhibit more humanity and substance. This quasi-tribal percussive presence is utilized only for the beginning of this 28 minute track, allowing moodiness to resume control of the patient flow.
Steve Roach - Streams and Currents (flac 230mb)
01 Present Moment 7:52
02 Spirit Moves 28:37
03 Slow Rising 14:38
04 Almost Touching 13:56
05 Ebb 4:52
06 Flow 4:00
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
1 comment:
Dear Rho:
Thank you for the albums. Steve Roach is one of the biggest discoveries in the entire blog. I am happy to see more of him and recommend people to listen his albums (especially during the confinement). Food for the mind and the soul. Keep it coming!
Best wishes,
T.S.
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