nnesimo titolo della sterminata discografia di Steve Roach, "Dynamic Stillness" è un tipico album ambient che non aggiunge molto all'opera dell'autore americano, il quale riesce con una buona dose di mestiere ed esperienza a sfornare rapidamente prodotti di qualità che sembrano però assomigliarsi troppo, fino a scomparire nel marasma di un genere sfruttato fino all'osso. Ai grandi autori gli si permette tutto, in particolare quando hanno un gruppo di seguaci collezionisti che non si lasciano sfuggire nessuna pubblicazione. Confezionato in un bel digipak a tre pannelli, il disco è diviso in due CD e in sole otto tracce, la cui durata mette a dura prova chi vuole cimentarsi in un ascolto attento. Le atmosfere rilassanti spadroneggiano guardando indietro alla tradizione cosmica del genere, che annovera ormai lo stesso Roach tra i Tangerine Dream e Klaus Schulze. Tutto funziona in maniera unilaterale per costruire un'architettura sonora atta a descrivere lo spazio infinito e i confini dell'inimmaginabile, usando solo le dilatate note dei sintetizzatori. Ogni pezzo si dipana tramite la reiterazione di uno schema che scorre imperterrito senza mutamenti, come fosse un inesauribile e lento corso d'acqua. Suoni monolitici e impalpabili segnano l'andamento dei brani più 'elaborati' ("Birth Of Still Places", "Long Tide", "Nature Of Things"), che cullano gli astanti alla ricerca di una meditazione tra le maglie del nulla; altri passaggi tendono invece verso un minimalismo stilistico che riduce la quantità e l'intensità dei suoni (soprattutto nel secondo disco) fin quasi ad un'irruzione del silenzio, interrotto solo da presunti soffi di vento ("Canyon Stillness") e con la new-age ormai all'orizzonte. Tutto già sentito e già fatto in passato, ed ora ripetuto con stile per l'ennesima volta. Indicato ai fans più incalliti. Rating: 6.5 - Michele Viali

Architects of Stillness by John Diliberto
I’ve been listening to some beautifully serene music lately. Not beautiful in the pretty sense, but in the sweep of the music, and not serene in the New Age relaxing sense, but in the almost aggressive focus and attention to detail. It started recently with Steve Roach’s Dynamic Stillness. The title itself speaks to that aspect of intense quietude I’m trying to articulate. The album harkens back to his classic Structures from Silence, a long-form composition of long-form tones, undulating out across a desert plain, but with tension that only comes from music that flies, but still retains the knowledge that you can fall. It’s scary up there.

The dynamic stillness. It's all a tour de force to create such a sound illusion which flows as weighty reverie. This album, Steve Roach matured it during the last 3 years, during which he also realized albums more powerful. It is also a collection of silence that is passed on by atonal sound waves, which are slightly in movement, personifying the quiet strength by the wandering of a remorseful spirit. We are in the soils of Structures from Silence and A Deeper Silence, but with more substance, more sorrow and more nostalgia.

A loud musical shower increases a dark movement at the opening of Birth of Still Places. A world of sound reverberations, which coos slowly but with a sonorous strength, like a cerebral hypnosis. Powerful, but languishingly slow, the musical structure spreads as a big charmer snake, ready to snatch you for sleep, on a rangy musical piece of around 61 minutes, divided into 2 soporific acts, but slowly ethereal; Birth of Still Places and Long Tide. From powerful, the movement eases slowly, as if the sleep seized us. To Darker Light open on a less stormy structure, as a soft warm wind which caresses our hearing. A soft temperate wind which continues on Opening Sky.

The CD2 opens with the same " chloromorphomity " that CD1 ends. Nature of Things is a long passage to waves finely oscillating which revolve in a dark cosmos, letting filter wandering choirs. A cosmic journey, as if we were there. Always in the cozy comfort of stasis, Further Inside flows slowly, as enchantress loops which would like to form an invisible cadence. A long piece where the rhythm tries to gush out held it is by an internal strength which Roach controls by the aid of its synths. A melodramatic quest which encourages more the nostalgic reverie than the meditation, which is connected to Slowly Revealed. A softer and more romantic title with its delicious steams of tranquility who navigate on a harmonious sea with its fine charming undulations. We do not grow tired of it, so much the movement pours with a strange melody blown by an obscure romanticism, where leak out subtle fluty essences in a spectral atmosphere. Canyon Stillness depicts the creative strength of Steve Roach. Here, as throughout Dynamic Stillness, Roach forges its music with an incredible dexterity for its nominative structures. Throughout this piece of 23 minutes, we feel winds whistled towards the imperfect furrows of the canyons from Roachian desert. A desert to thousand utopian facets which lull Steve Roach's creative illusions.

Dynamic Stillness is a powerful floating album, filled with feelings and sensibility of an artist in constant collection of its spiritual ideal. Very beautiful and especially very sincere. Roach at his best sound floating. - Sylvain Lupari

Steve Roach non smette di pubblicare capolavori. Per mettere un po' di ordine all'interno della sua sterminata discografia il musicista californiano sul proprio sito web ha assegnato ogni sua pubblicazione ad una specifica area tematica: il recente “Dynamic Stillness” è senza dubbio da infilare vicino agli altri dischi di Atmospheric Space. Il doppio cd contiene quasi due ore e mezzo di ambient stellare per lo più nata durante lunghe notti passate in perfetta solitudine nel bel mezzo del deserto. E' in questo suggestivo scenario del sud-ovest deli Stati Uniti che Steve Roach ha costruito parecchi anni fa il suo studio di registrazione ed è proprio dal deserto che trae ispirazione per le pagine più suggestive della sua musica. Roach non ha fretta di assalire l'ascoltatore: la prima traccia in scaletta di “Dynamic Stillness” dura ben 40 minuti (“Birth of Still Places”); la musica sembra immobile eppure è in continuo movimento; l'atmosfera è cupa e densa come il mercurio; il suono si propaga a perdita d'occhio nello spazio-tempo. Roach ha ricreato ancora una volta il respiro della notte. Chiunque abbia amato “Structures From Silence” può andare a colpo sicuro. - Roberto Mandolini

There is something musically beautiful and utterly captivating within the 2 discs that make up the latest release in Steve Roach's vast ambient catalogue. Dynamic Stillness is best characterized as being sounds of a lone location where emptiness abounds in a very powerful, but immensely beautiful way. As the music progresses from piece to piece, they change to reflect the completeness of this genesis as it comes alive.

The album begins with a 40+-minute work called “Birth of Still Places.” It starts with a noised stillness that is full of an unimagined power. It progresses to uncover simple melodies sounding much like Roger Eno's miraculous ambient masterpiece, Voices. They are small installments of echoed and ghostly shards of sound that express nothing short of grandeur in birth; something great in the act of becoming.

But what makes Dynamic Stillness an ambient force is that it doesn't stop at the already magnificent extended first track. You are awarded seven more pieces that combine with “Birth of Still Places” to further accentuate the audio journey that this album will guide you in. All speak of the same power and grace that lies just within our consciousness. This birthing element, when woven into a story that your mind will supply you with, can be a soothing elixir of sound that will energize your spirit.

Just close your eyes and slip into a new world of peace and strength supplied by the talent of Steve Roach, one of our treasured ambient greats. Rating: 4/5 Matt Rowe

“Dynamic Stillness” is the new ambient release from this solo artist who established himself and reputation in that difficult area of music. This album offers 8 pieces (including a more than 40 minutes long track) spread on two discs. The music mixes synthetic pads with a great bunch of atmospheric and aerial sounds. There are also some scarce noises and sound effects, but appearing very discretely in the mix. Subtle and gentle arrangements bring the listener to a pleasant and relaxing journey. It's definitely a soft soundtrack that we get here without hurts and aggression. It's presented and defined as ambient loop and it indeed bears some kind of slow and hypnotic repetitiveness.

This 2009 CD offers 146 minutes of extreme tranquility.

Languid textures unfurl into sonic structures of expansive proportion, filling the sky with their moody definition. As these drones undergo gradual pulsations, additional tones enter the panorama to season the flow with subtle fluctuations.

These tenuous electronic formations are subject to continuous progression, steadily evolving in ways that are often too gossamer to readily discern. Long passages ensue in which things do not seem to change. You space out at one point, only to surface later and find yourself cocooned in ambience of a completely different certification.

As these complacent electronics drift and commingle, territories of vast potential are generated. The ethereal harmonic layers are constant in their elusive quality, maintaining a sense of intense fragility.

A gritty character lurks deep within some of these soundscapes, an edginess immersed in the severe tranquility that serves to goad consciousness from its vacuity and instill a peaceful alertness.

While excruciatingly minimal in constitution, these compositions possess definite body and verve. Their sparse nature tends to seep and saturate, expanding inside the head into lavish auralscapes of psychic vitality.

This music foreshadows momentous revelations ahead, but the epiphanies are not found in the tuneage. They lie within the listener's own capacity; the soundscapes serve as the trigger to unlock depths beyond introspection.