Steve Roach was decades ahead of his time when he released Quiet Music in 1986 on cassette. Quiet Music: The Original 3-Hour Collection presents his groundbreaking album as he envisioned it. Gentle synthesizers mixed with flute, electric piano and nature sounds create a soothing spaciousness that evokes the essence of silence, carrying the listener deeper into the present moment. Much of this music was commissioned in the early 1980s by healing- arts programs and used for everything from meditation to birthing music. Roach’s introspective minimalism set the stage for all the minimalists who would follow. “In looking at the arc of my music, nearly thirty years after creating Quiet Music,” Roach reflects, “I still feel an unbroken connection to this same inner breath and pulse I was discovering within myself and my creative life. This music came to exist in its own dimension.” An extraordinary album—don’t miss it!

Over his 30 plus year career US ambient legend Steve Roach has released many classic, influential & highly respected slices of ambient music. But without doubt one of the most influential, often quoted and most loved recordings of Roach's career is the Quiet Music series which originally appeared in the mid-80s. This reissue brings together all three volumes of the series for the first time, and with out a doubt it's a lush & inviting stone cold ambient classic that hasn’t dated a bit over the years.

The three volumes of Quiet Music originally appeared on Fortuna Records in the form of three 60 minute cassettes released through out 1988. Then in 1999 Fortuna Records released a selection of the tape series in a double cd form rather confusingly entitled Quiet Music: Complete Edition (which clearly it wasn’t)- this new three digipak reissue is the first true reissue of all three volumes of Quiet Music, & it’s set out as Roach originally intended the series.

The music on all of the three volumes of Quiet Music was composed by Roach between the years 1983 & 1986, and all the material was originally commissioned for several "healing arts" and mediation programs; but don’t let that put you off- all of this collection side-steps anything remotely new age based to create a series of up-lifting, lush & life affirming recordings.

Disc one features the first volume of Quiet Music & this takes in just two thirty minute tracks “The Green Place, Part 1” and “The Green Place, Part 2”. The first track drifts into sonic view with just the sounds of birds chirping in a forest, and a distant waterfall. Around the minute twenty mark a vibe like sounding synth texture gently repeats a warming child like melody. As the track moves on Roach subtle adds in more layers of synth texture; but the sound picture never gets too over-crowded with the lulling & soothing bird song & water still been heard in the background. Around the six and a half minute mark the warming sounds of a single flute(courtesy of Will Morris) is added to the mix. The flute once again is very soothing & non-intrusive, and it really deepens the richly lush & beautiful floating vibe of the track. The rest of the track finds Roach’s synth textures slowly & elegantly weaving together with Morris flute playing, leavening the listener to slowly bob along on the tracks lush & enchanting ambient drift.

“The Green Place, Part 2”. once again starts with distant bird chatter & water field recordings, but fairly soon Roach synth playing starts up. The synths here are really following a similar melody line to the first part, but Roach’s playing is a bit more full, less drifting & more about cascading notation & texture. The track also feels less drifting and more firm in it’s structure yet it’s still very soothing with just the subtle sounds of water lapping and rushing in the background for most of it’s first half. Around the 12 minute the track picks up pace a bit more with a constant melodic bob of the main synth tone, this main tone is weaved by other subtle yet enriching layers of synth texturing and water/ bird recordings.

Moving onto disc two and we of course have “Quiet Music 2” and this consists of five tracks in all which range between nearing the three & a half minute mark, and just over the thirty tow minute mark. This disc moves from weaving & bobbing layered synth waters of the opening track “See Things”, to the slow glowing synth waltz & rushing water samples of “Towards the Blue”, onto the soothing & emotional ebb, drift & relaxation of “Something In The Tears”. Through to “A Few More Moments” which starts out with rising & sustained synth drone ’n’ ebb, before later on moving into cascading & weaving lite electronica territory. To the last track “Air And Light” which starts out as a series of slowly drifting & merging ambient synthesizer tones, then drifts into almost lush string like ambient drifts- it's a both emotional movingly & lushly captivating track.

So lastly we come to disc number three and “Quiet Music 3”, and this disc features three tracks in all: “Dreaming & Sleep” which comes in at just under the twenty two minute mark, “Quite Canon” which is just shy of the eight minute mark, and “Sleep & Dreaming” which is just over the half an hour mark. Both of the Sleep & Dreaming tracks are built around ebbing, soothing and glowing synthesizer textures that weave out rich & lush melodic drift & atmospheric expanses. With both tracks structures getting more lush & layered as the tracks go on. The second Sleep & Dreaming track also sees the return of Will Morris rich yet emotional flute playing which adds another layer to the tracks soothing ebb ‘n’ flow. “Quiet Cannon” is a surprisingly vibrate & jaunting mixture of slowed regal sounding electronica synth bob & waltz, which is ebbed & soothed by drifting string like synthesizer textures.

Each of the three volumes of Quiet Music offers their own distinctive charm and sonic personality, but all three retain a hopeful, soothing & restful air and vibe which rightly make these three releases a series. I can't really pick a favourite of the three volumes or even a favourite track as each volume & track has its own beauty, grace & soothing air of sonic wonder.

So to sum up if you have any interesting in any form of ambient & atmospheric synth based music this is a must buy item. It’s truly a classic & flawless ambient masterpiece that’s up there with the likes of Brian Eno’s “Discreet Music”, Aphex Twins “Selected Ambient Works Volume II”, and Stars of the Lid’s “The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid”. One of the best reissues of 2011!
Rating: 5 out of 5 -Roger Batty

Quiet Music is one of the milestones in Steve Roach's huge discography as well as in the genre of ambient music. Recorded during the period of years 1983 to 1986 and firstly available on three cassettes, few years later, in 1988 released as CD album and in 1999 collected and remastered to a 2CD edition, all by Fortuna. Now, when Fortuna rights expired and 25 years passed since its creation, finally available via Projekt as Quiet Music: The Original 3-Hour Collection 3CD packaged in very decently and attractively looking 6-panel digipak. As indicated by its title, Steve presents here absolutely peaceful and minimal aerial washes, floating ambience at its most relaxing and meditative level. Several long form pieces are featured on this treasured set, for example both parts of "The Green Place" that complete disc one, each one clocking over 30-minute mark. This is most likely the most naturally sounding ambience in these series with strong organic feel enriched by captivating and relaxing field recordings that beautifully color Steve's serene soundscapes and Will Morris' flute (with the synthesizer help of Mike Christopher at the beginning of Part One). The music splendidly portrays the first part of the cover image. Disc two, consisting of five compositions, three of them are shorter, while the last two pieces, "A Few More Moments" and "Air And Light", are longer (13 and 32 minutes) , is full of minimal and simple palettes, yet slowly and gently evolving, hauntingly beautiful and evoking vast landscape panoramas, where all these sonic textures capture pure magic of brightness, peace, serenity and silence. This truly fascinating journey, transporting each listener to another time and space, proceedes also on disc three. Two longer floaters include "Dreaming And Sleep" and "Sleep And Dreaming"(again featuring Will Morris on flute), while "Quiet Canon" clocks to 8 minutes, but all these three compositions will navigate you to beautifully magical and subconscious night sky trip. Usually I like to mention the most highlighting moments on each CD I review, but there is no need to do it with Quiet Music, where each composition has its significant role and all of them are masterfully blended into one incredibly tranquilized continuous sonic environment. Speaking about the artwork, all three front cover images magnificently display not only the beauty and power of Mother Nature, but also the beauty and power of Steve Roach's groundbreaking sound painting and visionary. Quiet Music 3CD set is definitely a true collector's item, no matter if you own above mentioned first two CD editions or the original cassettes, this is another must have and ultimate classic from The Master!!! Richard Gürtler (Sep 04, 2011, Bratislava, Slovakia)

Let’s make a long story short. Considered as being the highlight of relaxation, meditation and healing music, Quiet Music was composed between 1983 and 1986. Initially, the Fortuna label distributed it in 3 different shutters on 4 tracks cassette size in 1986. Two years later, a first CD edition saw the light of days. It contained the whole Quiet Music 2 plus a track from QM 3.In 1999 Fortuna launched a 2 CD-set including remasterised versions of QM 2 and QM 3 as well as the 1st part of QM 1. Fortuna’s rights expired and the Projekt label, which produces the music of Steve Roach since 1995 with The Lost Pieces, takes the torch and answers to the more and more insistent request of Steve Roach’s fans by producing the integral of Quiet Music works in a superb digipak box set of 3 CD; Quiet Music: The Original 3-Hour Collection.

If the deep tranquillity exists, it comes from the meditation of souls in the sources of the earth. The Green Place is a stunning musical journey that brings us in the heart of the flowering meadows of Colorado high deserts. It’s the very first Quiet Music and a superb CD that had pass beneath my ears and that would be a pity if the same thing would happen to you. Samplings of a nature hypnotized by a majestic calm open "The Green Place Part I". A river transports delicately its water which pours in delicate waterfalls under the enchanting singings of sedentary birds, captives of this splendid nature which breathes and expires the tranquillity. Soft limpid arpeggios are penetrating there on the tips of their notes and roam among this idle nature that a fine synth line covers of a delicate angelic mist. Dreamer, a soft flute comes to meditate and blows beautiful celestial harmonies which espouse marvellously the lyrical undulations of a synth which lulls all of its euphonies. This pinnacle of serenity follows its road, as a long and soft river of tranquillity, and fall in the notes of a wonderful piano. Notes which cast a veil of melancholy and which are throwing into the shimmers of a synth to loops and to divine rotary movements. We are in the 15th minute and it is pure magic. One is totally subjected by this piano from which minimalist notes spread out with fine modulations in their emotions. Notes which fall with such a delicacy that we go to daydream in this peace of mind environment where the soft nature is mixing in the breaths of an enchanted flute, in the soft embraces of a bewitching synth and in the delicate notes of a melancholic piano. "The Green Place Part II" is in the same spirit of calmness but with a little more musical intro, even more melodious. Arpeggios are less hesitating and form a beautiful oniric ballet with suave synth breezes. It’s a very good melodious intro which flies over the weak debits of waterfalls beneath the veils of a benevolent synth which enters in a temporal spiral to swirl delicately, a bit as Michael Stearns’ on the splendid Chronos. And the piano hatches. With the same notes as on "The Green Place Part I" and the same hoops of a synth to breezes of mist which is winding the entire emotionalism, "The Green Place Part II" emerges of an even more oniric melodious influx. Ending thus a jewel of quiet music!

Quiet Music 2 presents 5 tracks to more electronic tendencies than those of Quiet Music 1. "See Things" is a slow immersion in a universe of solitude with synth layers which couple and complain with delicate melodious filets. Short but melodious, "Towards the Blue" moves while following the course of a river flowing of serenity and beneath some fine oscillations of a synth which crosses more melodious and dreamy pads. "Something in Tears" is very striking with its synth layers which float and crisscross with a stunning sensibility. "A Few More Moments" is another jewel of stillness on this splendid box set. Slender synth strata float and roam in a slow soporific whirlwind. They interweave to form an enchanting cerebral ballet that delicate minimalist chords raise towards a night-melody which is not without reminding the superb Reflections in Suspension of Structures from Silence. It’s a delight for the ears and ideal for meditation, quite as the very ambient "Air and Light" (the longest track of Quiet Music trilogy), which is a real morphic monument for the peace of mind. It’s a very long track which evolves as an obsession for quietness where synth layers wind and intermingle in a strange and glittering luminosity to plunge us in the depths of our subconscious and get fresh ideas in the strength of silence.

Quiet Music 3 begins with the very beautiful "Dreaming and Sleep" and its synth layers which juxtapose in a beautiful harmony where the fluidity of night spectres shapes strange interior voices which murmur and hum discreet night-melodies. Splendid and intense, these melodies espouse delicious and long movements of serenity which wind with delicate synth implosions to guide us throughout this overnight filled of spiritual magic. It’s a sublimely oniric track, quite as its twin "Sleep and Dreaming" which is accompanied by Will Morris’ suave fluty breaths. Incredibly bewitching, "Quiet Canon" raises proudly the ingenuity of its naming. Wonderful synth arches follow each others in a minimalist echo to shape a great musical canon; Steve Roach's canon. Its polyphonic waves espouse fanciful violins of which slender bows hits are melting in the astral decoration sets by a solitary synth. These wrapping layers carry this night-lullaby in the temple of our dreams and whims. This is another splendid jewel of ambient and meditative music, signed Steve Roach. I learnt to like the ambient music in the sounds of Steve Roach's synths. The American synthesist composes his music as a poet writes his verses and he furnishes his inspirations as a painter colors his paintings. Steve Roach created the perfect album of relaxation where the atonal music moves on subtle oscillations and slow implosions of a very melodious and charmingly lyrical synth. As for me, Quiet Music: The Original 3-Hour Collection is a monument of ambient and meditative music. There are several jewels on this box-set where hours of ethereal and meditative music are constantly renewed on very abstract but very current themes. It’s a masterpiece that I recommend to any of you. -Sylvain Lupari

Ambient music has been around now for a long, long time. Once championed by Tangerine Dream, a successful German ambient band from the ‘70s, the genre has consistently expanded to become many things for many people. From therapeutic, musically backed waterfalls and ocean splashes to the magnificent textures of Michael Hoenig (Departures From The Northern Wastelands - 1977), to the many-faceted soundscapes of Steve Roach, and the distorted guitar ambience of Dirk Serries, ambient music is a powerful force in music.

Steve Roach is a well-noted ambient pioneer. Self-taught on the synthesizer, Roach released his first foray into electronic music with Now in 1982. Since, he has released more than 45 solo ambient albums, every one of them a different exploration of the instruments used to create them. In addition to the personal releases, Steve Roach has been a collaborative part of over 35 other albums. With over 80 albums in place since the early ‘80s, it’s easy to say that Steve Roach understands the ambient style perhaps better than other practitioner of the fairly exclusive genre.

His music approaches many themes. On Dust To Dust (1998), his collaboration with Roger King, the music hinges on unique western tonality. And yet, when Steve Roach wants to create and fully populate frightful and haunting worlds, it is an effortless project. Using minimalistic repetition to begin a “location,” Roach’s many solo albums become transit stations that draw the listener into a place that is not their own.

From strange, unforgivingly hot, machine-ruled industrial worlds to the cold reaches of alien landscapes, the music of Steve Roach is original and often challenging. There is always an unnerving hint of a dangerous and unexplored element in the background.

On October 11, Projekt Records will release Quiet Music: The Original 3-Hour Collection in a three-CD set that collects all three of the original single album recordings. Released between 1983 and 1986, each volume was designed to add ambient beauty in low tones to the quiet that already surrounded you.

Using synthesizers as a soothing flow of music, and mixing in nature sounds and traditional instruments like flute and electric piano, Quiet Music was something that provided many things to the listener.

And yet Quiet Music is likely to not be his only release in the waning months of 2011. Steve Roach is a tireless and prolific mind that doesn’t sit still. As well, 2012 will bring a slate of Steve Roach solo and collaborative works that will challenge and be of great importance and influence. The journeys afforded by his many albums are unique experiences never repeated nor forgotten. Like a drug that twists the wires of the mind, Steve Roach music can alter your "closed eyes" world. -Matt Rowe