Steve Roach & Kevin Braheney: Western Spaces (CD)

1. Breathing Stone
2. Desert Walkabout
3. New Moon at Forbidden Mesa
4. Desert Prayer
5. In the Heat of Venus
6. Slow Turning
7. Western Spaces

Combining Roach’s ambiance with Braheny’s lyrical passages on electronic woodwinds, Western Spaces was the first of two collaborations based on the landscapes of the American Southwest–in particular the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. The ambient “New Moon at Forbidden Mesa” contains hints of high winds, muted angelic voices, and echoing coyote howls, while “Desert Prayer,” opening with a cathedralesque keyboard figure, introduces a synthesized vocal sound not unlike a violin or a Middle Eastern cantor. Where later Roach albums deal strictly in color and timbre, Spaces incorporates the idea of melodic text. The solo voices and arpeggiated figures become a narrative that knits together the streams of consciousness expressed through layers of drone and percussion–like a sidewinder leaving trails across the desert floor. –James Rotondi