This 2009 double CD reissue of Spirit Dome from 2002 and Live Archive from 2000 is a natural pairing of albums and a natural pairing of talents. Since their fantastic Well of Souls, Steve Roach and vidnaObmana have collaborated successfully on several occasions, sometimes as a full-fledged duo, sometimes as guests on each others’ solo albums. If you somehow missed these on their first release, no true fan should be without them. Spirit Dome is the dreamier of the two, a haunting floater composed in a Philadelphia hotel room in the spirit of the moment. Divided into eight parts but playing as an epic continuous whole, this delicate work ebbs and flows serenely. Deep tribal beats appear in the second movement, yet they are somehow muted to meld seamlessly into the liquid ambience. The ethereal dark tones gain intensity, then flow into the third part which takes us deeper into the crevasse as the drums fade away. Though it shimmers at times, it spends most of its time enjoying wandering in the darkness of night. Live Archive covers a wider array of sound, culled from various concerts during 1997 both in America and Europe. Despite the varied sounds and locations, it flows quite nicely from the chanting and didgeridoos of “Verruchio Invocation” to the powerful tribal drumming of “Common Ground” to the abstract rustling noises of “Two Reptiles,” a slowly evolving, cavernous expansive tribal piece that is one of my favorites. “Soundworld Collage” starts and ends with soft organic tones but is brisk and intense in the middle. Both discs capture a range of cool sounds from two masters of the ambient genre.

Out of print and hard to find, Spirit Dome and Live Archive are re edited in a double-cd set by the label Projekt. An excellent initiative which gives a second chance to discover this strange collaboration between the American western synthesist with Belgian multi- instrumentalist Dirk Serries, alias Vidna Obmana. Strange collaboration? Certainly! And you have to hear this surprising Live Archive to understand to seize all the dimension of my statement. Recorded in concert during European and American tours at the end of the 90s, Live Archive is a collection of eight tracks which fit in a long musical piece to heterogeneous tones that float in the hazes of a sweet ethereal synth. A strange artistic association which forms a pure sound fantasy where infiltrates the ramparts of darkness with the musical corridors as strange as charming.

Mystic and captivating, the music of the duet to fantastical paradoxes is tinted with a somber discord which spreads out in the meanders of aboriginal atmospheres from an unknown world which revolves under our feet. Indeed below our buried deaths. Verucchio Invocation opens on scattered percussions which flow slightly over the water, under didgeridoo heavy reverberations. Resonances multiplies at night, covered with cymbals and strange Indian incantations, furrowing a reverberating sound corridor of which echoes get lost in a long biting trail. From this somber serenity, we are going into the sweet celestial stratas of Common Ground, of which the intro betrayed the animated heaviness that points up with dramatic percussions to caustic rumbles thunders that sow swell among a horde a discreet synthesized streaks which shell its melodies among tribal chants. Simply superb and subjecting! Roach and Obmana use a panoply of complex instruments (this is a live re cording, if you forget), creating a sound universe so rich as both ears have difficulty to assimilate everything. A unique music to deafening drones that are shaping to exquisite synthesized layers which fly over a ground of slow and hypnotic percussions, as we will find on the very beautiful and heady Two Reptiles who fades out its rhythmic in the ashes of Dreampipe Dialogue, one of the two ambient passages (the other being Ascension) on Live Archive. Merging ambient to frank rhythms of scattered tam-tam skins, Soundworld Collage furrows a strange sound world to bumpy crashes which hold sway among flute breaths all so enchanted as spectral. Pulsations and deaf hammerings which drag around spit viper cymbals, or electronic crickets, Tribal Perspective goes through a musical corridor semi trance and semi hypnotic, where howlings and cawings of whimsical darkness are stuffing themselves of innocence in perdition which grows with Divine Innermission’s intro and gets lost in the infernal rhythms guided by anabolic percussions which stamp one’s feet cruelly under a sky streaked with a strange blazing fire.

Live Archive is very different and more woken up than Spirit Dome; a more serene album which always exploits the suspicious meanders of an always unknown universe, but with a more poetic sweetness, stigmatizing the disturbing sound monument whom is Live Archive.

It is in the room 314, on the night of May 24th, 2002 (the day before Projekt Festival in Philadelphia) that the duet Roach / Obmana improvised Spirit Dome. A musical communion in the heart of the sleepy blackness of Philadelphia, which depicts admirably well the chemistry that lights up the sound ascent of two artists to convergent artistic ideals. Divided into eight segments Spirit Dome espouses the somber crepuscular movements with a light underground lapping which gives life to Spirit Dome I's intro. Quiet, the movement progresses following the wisdom of its delicacy, with a soft hollow breath which waves by following the smooth walls of a subterranean grotto which blazes from the iridescent specters of rattlers and other jumping insects which glide in this fanciful universe. Quite slowly, the movement increases of a quiet life with the appearance of the 2nd part, where light tam-tams rake up the night-depths of a parallel life with composite tones which adapt of thick clouds of reptiles and insects to metallic rustles, with the awakening of the first synthesized stratas which get entangled lasciviously around slow processions which breathe and expire in a poetic darkness. The 3rd part dives back into the atonal blackness where only howling layers blow such as misled specters which wander in corridors animated of a strange heterogeneous world which survives in abysmal limbos of night-wanderings.

And so goes Spirit Dome; a world strangely absent from where flees discreet sound spasms and percussions to dramatic processions which fall again into the forgotten night twilights, until the finale where synthesized stratas embrace the diurnal lights just before resting of this strange night owl quest. - Sylvain Lupari (Phaedream)

If you put two half-mad alchemists in one room with all their gear and leave them alone for an hour, something’s bound to happen. If those alchemists happen to be sonic masters Steve Roach and Vidna Obmana, the result is Spirit Dome, a live, improvised 73-minute excursion into dark organic spaces and breathtaking musical complexity.

Recorded straight to master at 1 am as the pair were preparing for a concert appearance, Spirit Dome wends its way downward through the listener’s consciousness into the primordial, serpentine landscape Roach and Obmana have explored in past collaborations such as Well of Souls and InnerZone. Together they sculpt a dimly lit pathway to the lower world—a journey rich in layered sounds and aural imagery. There is depth here, and distance; there is grace and disturbance.

Spirit Dome und Live Archive, 2 vom Stil her verschiedene Live-Alben, die bereits ausverkauft waren, wurden beim US-Label "Projekt.com" zu einer sehr empfehlenswerten Doppel-CD wieder herausgebracht. Zum Glück für uns, denn diese beiden CDs haben es wirklich in sich.

Spirit Dome wurde von Steve Roach und Vidna Obmana während einer Session in einem Hotelzimmer in Philadelphia eingespielt. Sehr dichte Klangstrukturen ziehen sich durch eine unheimliche Athmosphäre.... es ist eine richtig spannende Geschichte zuzuhören :-)

Live Archive umfasst Konzertmitschnitte, die im Jahre 1997 in den USA , Italien und den Niederlanden aufgenommen wurden. Tribal-Ambient vom Feinsten, viel Percussion, Didgeridoo und kürzeren Gesängen .... echt Genial !! Mit dieser Musik ist es recht einfach, um sich in Trance zu versetzen ;-) Diese Doppel-CD ist ein richtigens Highlight für Dark-/Deep-/Tribal-Ambientfreunde. Ein Meilenstein in der Chronik von Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana!!! -Uwe Saße

This release from 2009 (a combined reissue of two releases from bygone years) offers a grand total of 140 minutes of classic ambience.

Spirit Dome (73 minutes):

The music on this disc was performed live in a hotel room prior to ProjektFest in Philadelphia in May of 2002.

Ephemeral textures emerge from a watery foundation to hang in stately form in the listener's mind, turning and unfurling with eloquent disposition. Sighing tonalities gradually part to reveal haunting atmospherics peppered with shakers and sedately pattering percussives of a remote nature. Flutish strains embellish this nether realm with their feathery presence, hinting at shamanistic rituals from antediluvian epochs. Synthetic surfs wash over these delicate structures, drenching the air with a spectral shimmering. A sense of impending consequence tingles in the tenuous flux as the textures grow denser and more dramatic. The spirits are gathering.

Amid these cloud-like formations of sound, subtle sounds rise that are different from the artists' signature styles: whistles and bloops of a decidedly mechanistic quality, enhancing the eerie drift with their harsh mien, fusing modern sensibilities with this otherwise ancient mood. The result is spooky but unthreatening, inspiring faith in the ethereal forces that surround our daily lives.

The introduction to the flow of grinding insectoid noises achieves a holistic unification of man and nature. The air becomes aflutter with ascendant activity, carrying the mood to lofty heights where an impression of limitless perspective is easily accessible. An elegant grandeur overwhelms the ambient demeanor, thrilling the soul with the promise of colossal revelations. Rhythms of infinite scope, deftly executed with placid restraint, enter the dome to announce the expedience of this timeless wisdom. Dark and light forces combine, fulfilling an epic unity that is the spirits' ultimate message. Having revealed their intuitions of totality, the specters recede from detection.

Live Archive (67 minutes):

This disc features selections from the duo's concerts in Italy, the Netherlands, and the USA from the late Nineties, offering a superb dose of ethereal ambience riddled with acoustic atmospherics and environmental airs.

In addition to analog and digital synthesizers and samplers, various acoustic and ethnic percussives are employed in this music, along with classical and primitive woodwinds, and live processed voices. Also utilized are such curiosities as: hybrid grooves, primordial magma, and brain rattle.

These live performances exemplify manifold ambience. Deep drones mix with breathy atmospheres in an aerial spiral of languid auralscapes. Echoing aspects of nature blend with eerie electronics. Haunting evocations of misty realms are drenched in vaporous ghost-fire. Unperceived conversations are chronicled between stones of ancient origin.

Some of these sublime performances evolve rhythmic qualities, reminiscent of tribal ceremonies located just over the next hill. While other tracks display more delicate attributes, with textural dreampipes and processed flutes. Regardless of their rarefied substance, without fail this ethereal music creeps from a quiet whisper to voluminous inflation.

The disc's final track, "Divine Innermission", blends performance elements and studio recordings for a sublime 12 minutes of aerial waves, intricate rhythmics, and the gentle throb of a fretless bass.

Unified at last, this pair of classic recordings is a delight for fans of minimal sonic power, decorative rule.