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At every outing, the task of artists like Steve Roach is to craft a new realm entirely out of sound. His album Spiral Revelation (63'00") offers six electronic realizations of such discovery - meant to stimulate the imagination as well as hurry the interior current within. From the simmer of pulsing synthesized bleeps and soft echoing percussive patter, to chilling angular abstractions of sustained musical thought, Spiral Revelation deepens quietly through hinterlands that call out to be explored. With minimalist sequencer grooves giving rhythm to the surface of sound, patterns echo out across vividly imagined distances. This world seems in a constant state of motion. With everything moving, everything centered, the air seems to ring like a cold struck bell. Conjuring a thick atmosphere as if from a hushed spell, deeply breathing chords stack up and sustain. Shifts in emotional temperature result out of Roach's exploration of sound mass, as the kaleidoscopic cross link of repeating motifs propel the listener along a helix of syncopated tones. The energy arcing through this work is an appeal to the imagination - where we may ponder the mysteries of the universe within and without. Traveling in place is the promise of all Spacemusic - and this Spiral Revelation aspires to permeate the illimited distance of both our interior and exterior space.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 6 July 2017 |
