Steve Roach / Kelly David: The Long Night (CD)

Reviews

1. 

   padmin – August 27, 2020

   From Rockportaal

   Projekt begint dit jaar perfect met geweldige en mooie muziek. De elektronische soundscape samenwerking tussen Steve Roach en Kelly David is de volgende. Het doet een beetje denken aan Raison D’être en andere Cold Meat Industry dark ambient bands uit hun roemruchte verleden. Het is een reis naar de vergetelheid. Een eindeloze donkere ruimte zonder zwaartekracht. Mooi opgebouwde muziek (luister zorgvuldig naar de details), maar zeker niet voor mensen met een zwak hart. The Long Night is muziek voor een donkere, donkere nacht waarin het mooie anders klinkt. Een glimmende sereniteit en kalmte die de geest van de luisteraar tot rust manen, maar die altijd een licht dreigende ondertoon laat horen. Verwacht het onverwachte. Vijf nummers vol rust waarin de luisteraar zichzelf kan vinden. Meditatief, maar altijd met die licht donkere kronkel. -Ron Schoonwater

2. 

   Reviews Editor – August 16, 2017

   From Hypnagogue

   Here is a night you may not want to end. Despite its ominous title and shadowy cover art, Steve Roach and Kelly David’s collaborative work, The Long Night, is not a particularly dark release. I was expecting something along the lines of Darkest Before Dawn or A Piece of Infinity, but although The Long Night has its share of dark passages, it’s more a vision of the beauty and mystery of the deepest parts of night. There is the cold shimmer of moonlight cutting through clouds, the lightly haunted sense of not being entirely alone among the shadows, the calm quiet of being the only one awake and out in the space before midnight and dawn. Its darkness is the alluring sable of the sky, mysterious but not intimidating. Musically, it’s classic beatless Roach, blending endless bass drones and slowly wavering pads in thick layers. There’s a distinctly soothing quality to much of the work here, particularly in “Calm World” and the title track. The latter, particularly, will slide you into a dream state with warm, hushed tones and gorgeous harmonies.

   The duo also work in touches of percussion, just enough to texture the surface without having it take over. It arrives first in the distant clatter that dwells in the background on “Season of Nights,” then hits a stride on “The Deep Hours.” On that track, I hear (because I love it) the distinct sound of drums plucked from the tasty loops that Roach crafted for the Fever Dream releases. Dialed down to pulse quietly under the wash and flow of the track, they nicely insinuate themselves into your consciousness, melding with the crackle and curl on analog synth. This track in particular is signature Roach. “Calm World” also gets a bit of tribal percussion before it slips beneath the pads. I wish I could tell for certain where Kelly David’s contributions come in, but given how much I enjoy this release, suffice to say that his role in the overall chemistry is integral. Listening to this album got me to head over to David’s site to listen to his earlier work. I would suggest you do the same. My only bump with this release is that I found the breathy, hissing sounds early on in “Season of Nights” a little distracting and out of place. The sound is too sharp and feels almost dropped into the flow. But it passes soon enough to be forgotten amidst the calmness that follows. This has not kept me from looping The Long Night over and over. It’s a beautiful, meditative release. Put it on your outdoor speakers some evening and let it play in its natural habitat.

3. 

   Reviews Editor – September 3, 2014

   From Relaxed Machinery

   Long awaited collaboration between iconic Steve Roach and in Colorado based capable kindred spirit Kelly David, who is responsible for two remarkable, highly adventurous albums Broken Voyage (2002) and Angkor (2006), was released during January 2014. The album’s title as well as its awesome cover image by Stan Yeatts clearly reveal what to expect from this journey through nocturnal magic.

   Comprised of 5 tracks, each clocking between 10-plus and 14-plus minutes, the album reveals with “Last Light”. This serenely embracing composition glides through mysteriously undulating passages, hauntingly enhanced by various, richly detailed dissonant subtleties, while warmer expansive drone layers slowly sneak in, massively billow and guard above with all its grandiose beauty. These shadowy zones are essentially comforting and contemplative!!! “Season Of Nights” is immediately intensified by whistling infusions, but soon the monumental drone announces its domination, while glimmering modulations join the fore as well and continuously interact throughout with manifold volume. Splendidly immersing, and trickily disturbing too!!! Transition to the next piece, “The Deep Hours”, is masterfully spiced by various rumbles, clicks, all luxuriantly biotic and wrapped by underground grotto echoes, while cicadas excel with chirping noises. Serenely weaving wide-screen atmozones shortly invade, tranquilly expand and precisely evoke brooding voice-like sounds. Lazy tribal groove permeates quietly through fascinating nightly scenery, which is fully unfolded in all its blissful grace and serenity. This is nothing but pure moonlit magnificence delivered by two virtuoso composers!!! The journey continues with “Calm World” when deep drone hums invade, joined by distant rumbles, while spiraling dissonances deliver their mindscaping force before completely fading away. Then monolithic drifts take the lead and briskly amalgamate with remaining remote noises, but soon they dissolve into various disruptive, but tranquilly captivating layers, which graciously waft throughout and safely land into spellbinding stillness. 14-minute closing title track, “The Long Night” sharply dives into calm blankets with its colossally expansive meanders, cascades and climaxes. There are absolutely marvelous chameleonic transitions between breathtakingly gigantic passages and decreasing panoramic quietude. Toward the end vague euphoric sequences awake and cruise on the night skies. A sonic transmutation at its finest!!!

   The Long Night was released 13 months after Tales From The Ultra Tribe, a Hall of Fame collaboration of Steve Roach with Byron Metcalf. Yes, we certainly have here immensely triumphant fellowship as The Long Night is another stunningly transporting collaborative effort starring Steve Roach, who splits this performance extraordinaire with gifted veteran soundsculptor Kelly David. A man, who really deserves this glory, because his solo works Broken Voyage and Angkor undeservedly remain as well hidden treasures. Please, try to change this!!! Bravo, gentlemen!!! -Richard Gürtler

4. 

   Reviews Editor – August 9, 2014

   From Santa Sangre

   If you belong to the category of people who enjoy some quiet time alone during the nighttime, the cover photograph of this record will immediately appeal to you. An old, majestic tree, the branches of which extend to all sides, against a backdrop of deep blue sky alight with countless stars. The ideal image for any enthusiast of those little hours of the night, when everyone else around is fast asleep, and you get to have this meaningful silence all to yourself. You can hide in this velvet darkness regardless of where you are, but the feeling is always at its strongest in nature. Nature provides the framework for us to be able to bring to the surface that little piece of our soul that is directly linked to the primordial forces of this world.

   Steve Roach and Kelly David have tried here to put this warm, enveloping feeling of the presence of night into musical terms, and their advanced, organic ambient electronica comes really close to the real thing. Using analog and digital synths but also traditional instruments such as ocarina and cedar flute, as well as field recordings, the first words that come to mind when searching for a verbal description of this music, are ‘shamanic’ and ‘earthly’. The ones directly following are ‘space’ and ‘cold’. Because there’s a sort of marriage of heaven and hell here, a conjunction of the immutable and the eternal on the one hand, and the finite and flawed on the other.

   The first track, “Last Light”, is a token of that, as it consists of dark, deep drones vibrating in a state of continuous suspension. They rise and fall like soft winds sweeping the wilderness. Somewhere in the middle of the track the tone becomes slightly more melodic, but a mysterious, ghostly aura always hovers above this landscape of abstract elements and fading apparitions. There are moments here that could put the best dark ambient artists to shame. The wind instruments in “Season Of Nights” sound like ritual calls from within a virgin forest, and the elements increase as the track progresses. The darkness is impregnated with a multitude of voices, the stars are eyes all focused on one point. When man contemplates himself in their reflection, it is time to awaken rather than sleep. Indeed in “The Deep Hours” everything is fully awake. The sounds of insects, organic materials, earth, air and water, are emphasized by ethnic percussions keeping the rhythm of the ceremony. The music is always flowing and liquid, as if you’re lying half-asleep on a raft, drifting away somewhere in the Amazon.

   After this reconciliation with all that isn’t human in the night, “Calm Hours” gradually puts us back on the path of spacious minimalism. While there are harmonic passages, ambient melodies and even the occasional organic sounds, there are significantly less elements here than in the previous two segments. The music begins to soar again, to abandon its earthly domain for a spiritual, contemplative sphere. And it completely takes off in the closing track, “The Long Night”. Since this is the album title and the track that is chosen to finish it with, its culmination of beautiful harmonies and melodic ambient feels like a celebration of the album’s concept. The listener is happily floating in a sky full of bright stars and cold, clear atmospheres. The analog synths add a traditional, progressive electronics aura to this already breathtaking track.

   When you can’t go to nature, sometimes nature comes to you. Moreover, it is in you. It’s always been there. Comforting, relaxing, awe-inspiring, but also intimidating and perplexing. There are labyrinthine paths from which it is difficult to get out. Other paths may lead you to the light. And, as these things usually go, you never know which is which until it’s already too late. The Long Night with its clean-cut, but also accessible, emotional and melodic electronica and the uncanny ability of both these ingenious musicians to create imagery-specific atmospheres, could serve as a key to access this part of yourself. Just close your eyes, and the music will do the rest. -Vitriol

5. 

   Reviews Editor – June 30, 2014

   From Sonic Curiosity

   This release from 2013 features 61 minutes of nocturnal ambient music.

   Ambient electronics with a nocturnal touch – not “dark,” but the type of tuneage that evokes a peaceful evening.

   Luxurious texturals unfurl and stretch into soothing cloudscapes. Additional electronics of a gentle character embellish this foundation with their soft pulsations.

   Some of the electronics have a rattling edge to them, almost insectoid, but more creaky than chittering. These sound creep in and out of the mix, enhancing the flow with their eerie presence.

   Woodwinds (mostly ethereal flutes and breathy didgeridoo) contribute a whisper of air movement, enough to stir the edges of the listener’s mind with their lazy resonance.

   Some percussives are employed, but nothing overt or pounding. Gentle rhythms pitter just beyond one’s peripheral hearing, injecting tempos as sinuous as the fluid auralscapes they swim amongst. While Roach’s music often utilizes rhythms of a tribal nature, these beats are different, whispery and haunting, but evoking nothing of any campfire or shamanistic gathering.

   As previously mentioned, there’s nothing dark or ominous about this music. Instead, the emphasis is on capturing a mood of serene twilight…the enduring calm that settles after sunset, a sky filled with twinkling stars scattered across a tapestry of ebony velvet, the pleasant chill carried by nocturnal breezes, the tranquility that reigns by night, a peace that seems to be an environment onto itself. These lucid electronics excellently capture these sentiments, conveying the listener to a realm devoid of light but rich in enlightenment. -Matt Howarth

6. 

   Reviews Editor – May 20, 2014

   From Musique Machine

   The Long Night is a new collaboration between US ambient legend Steve Roach and up & coming electronic ambient artist Kelly David. The release is subtitled ‘Atmospheres for the Night Journey,’ and it finds the pair creating a sixty-one minute album that takes the listener on a soothing, yet at times haunting, journey into nocturnally focused ambient mood-scaping. The release consists of five tracks in all, and each comes in around the ten- to fourteen- minute mark a piece. Though really the tracks work as chapters in the bigger sonic story, the listener travels from dusk’s last light into the depths of the night itself.

   The release’s creation went though three set stages- firstly a series of late night sessions at Kelly David’s studio with the pair just utilizing analog modular synths. Next the pair moved to Mr Roach’s studio, where a selection of processed acoustic sounds such as flute and field recordings were mixed into the albums fabric along with a large array of analog and digital synthesizers. Lastly the whole thing was given a final mix to enhance the clarity and detail to all the subtle shifting tones.

   Each track takes you deeper & deeper into the pair’s subtly shifting yet often sonically descriptive sound worlds. As you move from slow revolving washes of tonal ambience that suggest the last dying rays of sunlight. Through to mysterious weaving & whistling flute ‘n’ synth swirls, which bring to mind both nocturnal breezes & night-time bird calls. Onto winding ‘n’ creaking woozy electro textural drifts, which unfurling into wavering analog synth melodies & stripped back tribal beat-scapes. Through to slow moving & mind expanding drifts into muilt-layered & subtle detailed ambient tonal shift & textural ebb.

   There’s nothing really dark, sinister or brooding about this album as one might expect from a release themed around the nocturnal hours. But instead the release fully embraces the lush uncoiling & often hypnotic spirit of nighttime itself. All told it’s another very rewarding collaborative release from Mr. Roach, and if you enjoy slow yet subtle detailed ambience with harmonic & soothing edges to it – this could well be for you. Rating: 4 out of 5 -Roger Batty

7. 

   Reviews Editor – March 6, 2014

   From Darkroom Magazine

   La sempre attiva Projekt dell’instancabile Sam Rosenthal è lieta di presentarci sul mercato una delle collaborazioni che lasceranno sicuramente il segno in campo ambient/drone per questo ormai avviato 2014. I due artisti chiamati in causa non necessitano di presentazioni: trattasi del seminale Steve Roach, probabilmente uno dei musicisti più prolifici della storia della musica indipendente, affiancato dal collega Kelly David, che condivide con Roach la nazionalità e il genere, sebbene la sua produzione sia infinitamente più esigua.

   The Long Night è un disco in cui il lavoro dei due è perfettamente equilibrato ed equiparato. Nessuno dei due artisti prende il sopravvento sull’altro, con una perfetta divisione di tutti i compiti, tra composizione, esecuzione, produzione e registrazione. Un disco bello, nato appunto da jam session notturne, evolutesi in cinque pezzi ben piazzati per poco più di un’intensa ora di musica. Mixato nei rispettivi studi tra l’Arizona e il Colorado, l’album non mostra segnali di cedimento. Un’ottima immersione nel sound notturno, cupo e mentale tipico di Roach, anche nelle altre sue svariate collaborazioni. Poca sperimentazione, ma precise composizioni che approfondiscono al meglio il lato oscuro dell’ambient americana, a differenza delle ultime uscite dello stesso Roach. Niente tribalismi: piuttosto un approccio ipnotico, siderale e psichedelico. Un disco che concilia il più oscuro dei sonni, la colonna sonora per un’incursione negli abissi. “Season Of Nights” travolge come un fiume in piena, inondando la camera e l’apparato uditivo di droni mastodontici e inscalfibili. Non è da meno “Calm World”, con la sua breve ma intensa ricerca di speranza.

   L’highlight del platter è però la lisergica “The Deep Hours”, forse quella in cui è Roach a esprimere maggiormente sé stesso, tra tappeti orientaleggianti e ritmi acidi. È bene soffermarsi anche sulla title-track, dove i due esplorano un crescendo d’emozioni per l’apice di un disco che non sbaglia un colpo. Inutile consigliarvi ancora una volta l’ascolto in cuffia o in camera, visto che l’alchimia verrebbe persa e si rischierebbe di accusare dei grandi artisti di monotonia. Lasciatevi ancora una volta invischiare nei loro affascinanti trip, splendidamente esplicati col termine “zen noir”. Immancabile per i fans. Rating: 8 -Max Firinu

8. 

   Reviews Editor – February 17, 2014

   From Synths & Sequences

   The Long Night is an ambient musical journey in the night heart where the sleep bickers with its misty guest and their premonitory fights”

   In spite of all these albums where the apathetic winds sing on plains deserted by reliefs, the music of Steve Roach continues to seduce always as much as she calms. Composed with Kelly David, to whom we owe Broken Voyage, The Long Night is an ambio-morphic ode for a long night when torments harass the rights for a sleep. A long night skillfully sculptured by some slow and captivating synth breezes of which the soothing breaths are confronted with the rebels of the insomnia.

   And that begins with the hollow breaths which recall of the “Last Light”. The intro is relaxing with lines of synth which heap up such as a somber musical thick cloud pierced by fine chords which float like harmonies worn-out and lost in a dense sonic envelope which moves with the slowness of its opacity. The movement is familiar. Slow it floats with its duality between serenity and anxiety. If at times everything is quiet, we feel a threat soaked of tragedies which announce that the desired quietude will soon be perturbed by the guards of the awakening. And this is this impression which gets loose from the first night-waves of “Season of Nights”. If the movement always stays without beatings, we feel the hand of a trap which threatens the dreams to come with darker synth lines which, if wrap the movement of an intense sluggish sound mosaic, sneaks between the phases of the NREM sleep and REM sleep. Like black dreams, these lines infiltrate the confusion with sonic upheavals deserving of a storm that only dreams can foment inside the sleep.

   After this disturbing ambiosonic phase, the slow tribal rhythms of “The Deep Hours” go deeper into the anxiety with an ambient rhythm which magnetizes the howling winds. “Calm World” is as calmer as its naming and brings us back to the peace of mind abandoned by “Season of Nights”. Its second part offers an attractive paradisiacal approach with a charming sound universe where the carillons sing in a shower of prism. This is some great Steve Roach here who concludes his journey through the meanders of night tormented by a quietude desired and found in the winds of the serenity which lulls title-track.Steve Roach won’t reinvent his style. His musical signature can vary between his long monuments of meditation and his structures fed by rhythmic disturbances, but it remains always unique… And it’s the same thing when he collaborates with another artist. This being written, The Long Night respects the ambient territories drawn by Steve Roach and the darker approaches, even dramatic, imagined by Kelly David. It’s a journey in the night heart where the sleep bickers with its misty guest and their premonitory fights. It’s pure candy for fans of deep ambiances which bicker between the serenity and its duality. -Sylvain Lupari

9. 

   Reviews Editor – February 17, 2014

   From Percorsi Musicali

   Kelly David is an ambient musician who, in 2002, at 48 years of age, made his debut with Broken Voyage, a self-produced CD (later reissued), which proposed obscure and unusual journeys in the perimeters of the sea. The AMG’s critic Jim Brenholts has considered “Broken Voyage” one of the best debuts occured in the ambient genre and he placed it in the top ten ambient albums of all time. Kelly, after Broken Voyage (which I highly recommend to buy), recorded another cd in 2006, that was focused on the ruins of Angkor’s city in the Cambodian jungle. After 8 years Kelly returns to the limelight with Steve Roach, his traveling companion in The Long Night, a documentation of a fascinating and incredible night walk intincted into powerful and cavernous sounds.

   The opening of “The Last Light” is an immersion in the plots of synths that leave already understand that we are close to the last available light before embarking on new maneuvers that will lead us to act in the dark. “Season of nights” continues in the psychological attraction: the electronic sound is full of nuances and perfectly centered to achieve the goals: the effect of the fusion between thinking and music is banned here; so a series of hazy drones carve out its own space in the presence of a particular substrate, similar to the noise of aboard (recreated from synths that are left to float in their amplification); “The deep hour” is the time of the wellness in which a sort of celestial harmony is underpinned by dark shamanic tam tam, followed by a bucolic progression. “Calm world” is the result of the previous track: a dilated atmosphere announcing a calm state of Eastern memory, it breaks, in the middle of the song, in an ecstasy-like joy of having discovered a treasure. The conclusion of The Long Night gives space to liquid crescendos of synths measuring the sense of satisfaction: they gently fade and then reappear again, as in a full biological cycle of life. -Ettore Garzia

10. 

    Reviews Editor – February 17, 2014

    From Ondarock

    Il 2014 è iniziato da nemmeno un mese e porta già sulla sua lista la firma di Steve Roach. L’instancabile vate dell’ambient music si presenta, esattamente come avvenuto l’anno scorso, con un progetto collaborativo ad arricchire il catalogo della fida Projekt: ad affiancarlo in questa sua nuova opera è Kelly David, musicista con base in Colorado che ha seguito da vicinissimo l’evolversi della scena californiana, senza mai riuscire però ad emergere al pari dei suoi contemporanei.
    Amici di lunga data, i due hanno deciso di unire le proprie anime artistiche dopo anni di progetti e idee, fino ad oggi sempre puntualmente rimandati a date da destinarsi e mai effettivamente concretizzatisi.

    A conseguirne è dunque The Long Night, un’opera che torna a vertere come prevedibile sull’espressione più classica dell’ambient del maestro di La Mesa, ma in grado all’interno di essa di cercare e trovare punti di contatto con alcuni degli universi confinanti. Capita così che a solcare un reticolo fisso di droni oscuri tanto da lambire in alcune occasioni il puro dark-ambient vi siano a turno le pulsioni viscerali coniate al fianco di Byron Metcalf, sfumature di sinewaves e i più classici flussi astrali divenuti ormai marchio di fabbrica della sua miscela. Una contaminazione già propria di gran parte delle ultime opere dell’artista, impegnato da qualche anno a questa parte in una conciliazione fra la moltitudine delle sue anime sonore.

    Il risultato è un magniloquente inno alla notte, esplorata in tutte le sue facce e da punti di osservazione situati in luoghi e ambienti diversi, dalla foresta artica riprodotta in copertina a boschi tropicali, passando per distese desertiche e vaste praterie. Anche il cielo stesso viene dipinto con volti diversi: scuro e privo di qualsiasi luce nell’avvolgente “Last Light”, solcato da nuvole alte e fitte nella prima metà di “Calm World”, pronte poi a dissiparsi rapidamente nella seconda per lasciare spazio a estese costellazioni. Nei battiti sotterranei di “The Deep Hours” queste sembrano prendere vita e dare il via a una sorta di danza primordiale, per poi fermarsi di colpo e lasciare spazio al passaggio simultaneo di più comete nel conclusivo quarto d’ora della title track.

    L’abilità con cui questi mostri sacri da tre dischi di inediti all’anno (Roach) o dal tardivo quanto meritato arrivo nell’Olimpo (David) si dimostrino in grado di musicare immagini e suggestioni è dato tutt’altro che sorprendente. Ciò che continua a stupire ancor oggi è la capacità di rendere tutto questo per mezzo di un linguaggio talmente inconfondibile e personale da aver trovato nella variazione sul tema l’unica possibile via di sviluppo.
    Evoluzione che nonostante questo continua a non mancare, a presentarsi ciclicamente, sebbene sotto forma di un processo graduale, imperniato più su cambi atmosferici e combinazioni stilistiche che su autentici sviluppi sonori. Una musica che trova nel legame dialogico con l’ambiente una fonte di linfa vitale che sembra sempre più lontana dal potersi esaurire. Rating: 7 (very good) -Matteo Meda

11. 

    Reviews Editor – February 17, 2014

    From Peek a Boo

    Projekt is really kicking off this year with some great and wonderful music. The electronic soundscape collaboration between STEVE ROACH and KELLY DAVID is the next one.
    It reminds a bit of Raison D’être and other Cold Meat Industry dark ambient bands of their highly acclaimed past. It’s a journey into oblivion. It’s an endless dark space with no gravity. Beautifully built music (listen carefully for the details), but definitely not for the weak hearted. The Long Night is music for a dark, dark night in which the beauty of things sounds differently.
    A gleaming serenity and calmness that will put your mind at ease, but always with a slightly threatening tone. Expect the unexpected. Five songs of tranquillity in which you can find yourself. It’s meditative, but always with a slightly dark twist. -Ron Schoonwater

12. 

    Reviews Editor – January 22, 2014

    From Expose

    This new collaboration between Steve Roach and Denver based ambient composer Kelly David hits the nail on the head. The Long Night is an hour-long, five-part piece designed to take the listener into the subconscious and meditative atmospheric world along the midnight path; a shimmering world of slowly shifting non-rhythmic textures borne of electronics and heavily processed acoustic sounds and studio atmospherics. The five pieces are slow evolutions, growing and developing and gently folding into one another to create a gentle continuum where calm and stillness meet the scintillating energy of a journey into the nocturnal void, where dark meets light in subtle intricate passages that illuminate the inward path to the subconscious. From one who has used this type of music as accompaniment for meditation, slumber, and travels into deeper states of consciousness for at least two decades, it truly doesn’t get much better than this. This is not pretty new-age music, there is no form, rhythm or melodic color here, no sequences or anything like that. This is a slow-evolving exploration of sonic textures in its purest form. Perhaps Projekt’s release sheet says it best: A contemplative zen noir of minimal radiant ambience. -Peter Thelen