Steve Roach & vidnaObmana: Well of Souls (2-CD)

A review from Detroit Metro Times: This is an unequalled achievement, and nothing in ambient or space music can be compared to it. It is organic, graceful and nebulous; it approaches the realm of the sacred.

A review from Tower’s Pulse! Magazine: Steve Roach has been honing an electronic vision centered around textures and psychological spaces rather than rhythm and melody, and Well of Souls (**** / Four Stars) is a further distillation of the techno-tribal sound that Roach has explored for nearly a decade. A dark descent through textures that swirl and drift like liquid smoke while tribal percussion throbs out its hieroglyphic Morse code. Roach and Obmana are psychic navigators negotiating the caverns and grottos of a dark underworld.

When the habits of logic evaporate in the trances of an unbridled sun, you begin to recognize the things your eyes prefer to hide. From American composer Roach and Belgian prodigy Obmana comes this new collaboration, articulating its own secret world, a dimension beyond the limits of classification such as “atmospheric” and “tribal-ambient” often employed to describe these artists.

Well of Souls is a double CD set with each disc exploring the nuances of two very different yet interconnected perspectives — a world that simmers with meaning during the day and whispers a whole set of other insights at night. Taken together, these pieces bring to life a multi-faceted, continuously evolving portrait of those things which the eyes like to hide but the heart longs to embrace.

“There is no way to anticipate the benediction
of that secret arrival.
It’s not like falling head first into a well of souls.
We are already surrounded by those waters.

On searing afternoons, when the habits of logic
evaporate in the trances of an unbridled sun,
you can see waves rising from the desert floor,
and you begin to recognize
the things your eyes like to hide.

This is the same secluded brilliance
that pours through deep hours of the night,
illuminating your dreams
with myths of the recent future
and memories submerged long before your birth.

It is white embraced in the blackest of black,
the quiet companion that whispers in silence
and makes the darkness smell of roses,
urging you toward the distant sound of the gathering.

Closer… Closer to the dwelling place…
– Linda Kohanov