Steve Roach: Rest of Life (2CD)

Reviews

1. 

   Reviews Editor – August 7, 2023

   From CD Hot List

   For ambient music to be (in my estimation) worth recommending to libraries, it has to be more than just pretty or pleasant: it needs to be interesting. It should be music that you can ignore if you want while you do things like read or focus on work tasks, but that rewards your attention if you stop and attend to it. The latest from Steve Roach (a composer whose music, I must confess, sometimes leans a bit too far in the New Age direction for my taste) achieves that balance perfectly. The music floats and drifts without anything that feels like a purposeful chord progression, but at the same time there is real complexity here: listen to the harmonic structure of those floating chords on “Future Informing,” for example. All six of the featured compositions (the last one a disc-length, hour-long meditation on “the unexpected harmony of chance and expanding time”) are both deeply pleasant and genuinely interesting. Highly recommended. -Rick Anderson

2. 

   Reviews Editor – April 11, 2023

   From A Closer Listen

   Ambient music pioneer Steve Roach’s records are always inviting the listener on a journey. The spaciousness of his musical textures and tones leave the locations and destinations open though. It could be through the recesses of your mind, the vastness of space, or the endlessness of Roach’s own native landscape, the American Southwest.

   It’s one of history’s idiosyncracies that the gentle, lush, and minimalist synthesizer music Roach helped pioneer is as associated with the elusive reaches of outer space as it is with the arid landscapes of the American Southwest (thanks respectively to the kosmische musik of such groups as Tangerine Dream on the one hand, and the rise of ambient and new age music in the 1970s American west.) Geographical and temporal associations are sticky, but the generosity of the music is often just as amenable to whatever trip or journey you choose to undertake yourself as you listen and Roach’s latest is no different.

   Rest of Life is no great departure from what has come before it, and welcome as such. Clocking in at over two hours, Roach seems eminently comfortable with the fact that you will most likely use these compositions to soundtrack your head, home or car with its gentle movements and barely-there melodies.

   Each of the album’s six tracks are characteristically long and meandering (the last track, “The Knowing Place,” alone is nearly an hour long). This is music in no hurry to get anywhere, content, sometimes surprisingly committed even, to finding a way to luxuriate in the moment. There is movement of course, although it’s hard to imagine these were anything other than improvisations. There are also slight variations in mood across the album’s duration. As the album progresses there is a move from more optimistic, major keys, to the use of more minor tones and longer pauses between sounds and riffs. The shift imbues the record with a faint sense of eeriness and pause, an affective ambiguity that might be a welcome change from the emotional indulgence of other deployments of the lush, various synthesizers to which Roach turns here.

   The sonic palette however remains much the same across Rest of Life’s run time—crystalline tones and lusciously ethereal synthesizers are situated amidst washes of space and wind. This is music you could meditate to, or maybe music that evokes the mental state that accompanies mediation. Just as thoughts drift in and out of focus, so do Roach’s intentions and the sonic focus of his compositions, their sounds emerging and developing seemingly effortlessly, perhaps even naturally, from the air. -Jennifer Smart

3. 

   Reviews Editor – April 11, 2023

   From Rockerilla
   One hundred and thirty-four minutes of intimate and meditative space-ambient. Steve Roach himself writes that he was inspired by his classic albums Structures From Silence and Quiet Music to compose and record the six long tracks of his new double CD: “Not in a nostalgic sense, but exploring and expressing where this feeling lives in me today, deep inside myself. As said in the Quiet Music liner notes years ago, the essence of this ‘deep listening’ occurs not only within the experience of the music itself, but also within the place you are after the music vanishes and you return to silence, to the Rest of Life.” Immersive. -Roberto Mandolini

   Original Italian:
   Centrotrentaquattro minuti di space-ambient intima e meditativa. Lo stesso Steve Roach scrive di essersi ispirato ai suoi album classici Structures From Silence e Quiet Music per comporre e registrare le sei lunghe tracce del suo nuovo doppio cd: “Non in senso nostalgico, ma esplorando ed esprimendo dove questo sentimento vive in me oggi, nel profondo di me stesso. Come detto nelle note di copertina di Quiet Music anni fa, l’essenza di questo ‘ascolto profondo’ si verifica non solo all’interno dell’esperienza stessa della musica, ma anche all’interno del luogo in cui ti trovi dopo che la musica svanisce e ritorni al silenzio, al Rest of Life.” Immersivo, -Roberto Mandolini

4. 

   Reviews Editor – March 23, 2023

   From Ambient Blog
   Recommended
   I don’t think Steve Roach needs any further introduction. With his immense catalog (some 200 albums since 1982), he singlehandedly defined at least a part of the ambient genre: the ‘lush, meditative soundscapes’ originally inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis – but which has since then branched out to become a sub-genre of its own. If you are already familiar with his work, this new release may not bring new surprises. But ‘new surprises’ are not obligatory: more of a good thing can be rewarding enough too!

   And Rest Of Life does not disappoint. The 2-CD release is Roach‘s ‘opus to quietude’. 134 Minutes of quietude, to be exact, with the shortest two tracks 8 and 10 minutes in length, two tracks around 17 minutes and one of 23. The Knowing Place – which also features Linda Kohanov playing the viola – takes up the entire second CD with its 60 minutes (and 15 seconds).

   “… The essence of this deep listening occurs not only within the experience of the music itself but also within the place that you are after the music fades and you return to the silence, this rest of life.”

   As for the title of this release, Roach reveals: “(It) is drawn from my relationship to time itself. The priceless value of time and how we engage, rest, immerse, play with, step out of, create and love within our precious time on this planet. Every day I feel the Rest of Life revealing itself in subtle yet dramatic ways.”

5. 

   Reviews Editor – March 11, 2023

   From Star’s End

   For those of us who know the midnight shining through our windows, and hear it beaming over our radios on STAR’S END, there are the releases of Steve Roach. Quietly captivating, his Rest of Life (134’03”) reaches the radiant receptivity to all things sacred found within enlightened audiences. Moving our minds in a familiar outward direction this album is thoroughly inspiriting, yet perpetually on the verge of sleep – that unique in-between realm which glows in the twisting and turning of mind and music. The six tracks are each a wonderful expression of ambience, texture and Roach’s potent sense of drama. Space is created, then filled with ever evolving sound. Shifting soundscapes and prone drones, then a gentle mental sequencer pattern, all expanding beneath reverberant synth notes – combine perfectly, and somehow build a distinctively ethereal atmosphere. Providing listeners with an impressive range of shaded moods and muted tones, we surrender to the stillness only rarely. Showing as much spirit as skill in the formation and execution of this dreamy realization, we also discover an artist striving towards perfection. By contributing to the world’s store of beauty Roach may enrich any space filled by Rest of Life. It plays like it belongs among the stars, but we will always discover the best parts of this work vibrating serenely inside our own selves. -Chuck van Zyl/STAR’S END

6. 

   Reviews Editor – March 10, 2023

   From Exposé

   Earlier this year Roach’s Ambient Church New York City concert from June of last year was released for general consumption, an historic live recording from what has to be the perfect venue for this kind of immersive music. Now, only a few months later we have a new double-disc set of powerful studio recordings, the first disc featuring five shorter (relatively speaking) pieces of quiet, atmospheric yet colorful pieces of introspective ambient sounds, with a second disc featuring a single expansive long-form piece that stretches out to a full hour, slowly covering the listener with warmth and surreal moving textures, which is a good place to start.
   
   Rest of Life refers to the composer’s relationship with time, and its priceless value within our time in this world, from moment to moment or further into the vast expanses of time. Disc two hosts “The Knowing Place,” the mysterious vast summit where all things are observable to the listener. Roach’s battery of synths are joined by guest cello as the piece unfolds before you in real time, stretching out into the unknown, the walls breathe and the floor buckles, and the ceiling opens to a beautiful starlit sky dripping with cosmic beauty; the cyclical nature of the soundworld elicits peace and wonderment, each cycle opening a deeper path into the mystical spiral, as the listener slowly lets go of all worldly baggage on their way to the sublime pinnacle of consciousness, After a solid hour of these massaging sound cycles, listeners will no doubt find themselves in a new space, a more relaxed and unconfined place.
   
   The first disc contains a similar program of slower, evolutionary pieces that cast an atmosphere of dreamy colors and warmth, but without many of the dark textural elements found on the second disc, with a touch more sonic purity. The eight-minute opener “Sit with Me” sets the stage for the 23-minute title track that follows, a bouquet of soft pastel colors and shimmering cloudbursts that offer pleasure to all the senses as the piece slowly proceeds and eventually fades to black. With “Future Informing” the listener is treated to the sound of what seem like glacially expanded bells and gongs, giving the sense of distant sounds while walking on a frozen lake, with echoes coming in from all sides. The appropriately titled “Softly Spoken, Deeply Heard” is another long one, approaching seventeen minutes, mostly a very quiet adventure that blows in softly like a warm summer breeze, punctuated by colorful highlights. The disc one closer is “Stream of Forever,” another deep-listening piece that stretches out to an album side, a cyclical journey evoking stillness and calm, with soft sequenced sounds hovering just below the surface. In all, Rest of Life calls forth a gentle world of cosmic beauty that all fans of Roach’s music will want to immerse themselves in. -Peter Thelen

7. 

   Reviews Editor – March 6, 2023

   From Musique Machine

   The title of ambient pioneer Steve Roach’s latest masterpiece, Rest of Life, is a dead giveaway for what awaits listeners to this epic, slow-moving work, which clocks in at over two hours.

   Rest, in one sense, is repose and that cannot be argued with – the work is restful, relaxed, and as soft as a warm blanket. The other meaning of rest is, of course, a remainder, that which is leftover, or, temporally, that which has yet to pass or be used up. The delicate and generative sweeps of Roach’s minimalist compositions engage – perform, even – both meanings of the work’s title. The music overtakes with a subtlety that is rare among contemporary practitioners of the genre. To “listen” to Rest of Life is to be plunged into a temporality that is entirely out of step with that of everyday experience, hurried along by tasks and goals that put one squarely on the path of a time pre-determined, all too aware of where things are headed and why.

   Even those deeply skeptical of the experience economy will find themselves immersed in a kind of time that is both present and eternal, where you are both fully cognizant and yet totally freed from any specific object of contemplation. It would make sense to say that the shorter, preceding tracks on this release prepare you for the hour-long final track, “The Knowing Place”, but that isn’t exactly true. Heard in succession, there were moments when I wasn’t sure where I was in the album’s progression, and after confirming that I was in fact at the final track, I learned to stop worrying and just let it be. What might go missing in any perfunctory recapitulation of Rest of Life is the dissonance that results from repeated listenings, which cannot be attributed to Roach; rather, it is a necessary symptom of stepping out of the teleology of late capitalist time. I found myself wanting to return to the place I had experienced, not the specific turn of musical phrasing or the like. I don’t know if that is a compliment Roach would welcome, but it was unavoidable – the feeling of having escaped some internal, ideological structure of time while listening. But there it is, for better or worse.

   Rest of Life moves and grows like an organic, autonomous being, and it might be overstating the obvious to say that there is a pain, or homesickness, that accompanies such a release. Unlike the plastic arts, which provide an object (or the conspicuous absence of one) to return to, music is bereft of the kind of dumb materiality that anchors and engenders experience. Amen. Roach knows this, and the sly fox, who has been at this for over four decades now, continues to turn ephemerality into something concrete.

   Very highly recommended for fans of Roach’s previous works, and for anyone who is ready to hear what the rest holds. Rating: 5 out of 5 -Colin Lang

8. 

   Reviews Editor – February 25, 2023

   From Echoes

   Echoes Radio’s March 2023 CD of the Month

   It takes a certain sensibility to create and perform music that moves at a pace that makes glaciers seem like rockets. Patience and a meticulous eye for deeply embedded detail are what’s required, rather than technique and flashy changes. Steve Roach has had that all along and you hear it in music like The Magnificent Void, Stillpoint and Quiet Music. And of course, you hear it in Structures from Silence. You won’t be wrong hearing echoes of that 1984 classic in Roach’s latest album, Rest of Life. Long synth pad chords arc slowly in a grand spectral dance of balletic giants. But right from the start there’s another element, perhaps a bit unsettling. Space echoes murmur at the edges, descending and rising like alien creatures casting luminescent patterns on the opening track, “Sit with Me.” At 7:50, it’s the shortest track and a gateway into the expanse of Rest of Life.

   You won’t find any of the analog modular synthesizer wizardry that Roach has been exploring for the last decade. Instead, he returns to his ’80s arsenal including the Oberheim Xpander, Oberheim Ob-X8 and Solina String Synth. This was the sound of Structures. Layered and looping, chords waft through each other, transforming in languid pirouettes. On the title piece, the first long-form track, you feel like you’re gently moving through rooms that are translucent and interlocked, curved catacombs of mysterious hallucinations. This is the music of a dream state or deep psychedelic contemplation. This music exists not on a dance floor scale but on a cosmic swirling-in-slow-motion scale.

   Floating through the slow, breath-like gasps of “Softly Spoken, Deeply Heard,” I imagined this is what the universe sounds and feels like to the Space Guild Navigators of Dune, threading their way through folded space, connecting galaxies.

   “Stream of Forever” is the most active piece on the album, which isn’t saying much in terms of activity. It has the faintest of pulses and a return of that descending-ascending gurgle in track one. Stealthily, a gentle, ping-ponging melody emerges, carrying you through its 16-minute duration.

   The second disc of the album is taken up by “The Knowing Place.” It’s a single, hour-long track, which is why it has its own disc. While much of the first disc uses a similar timbral palette on every song, “The Knowing Place” goes into a deeper, darker sound, moving in deep bass and string tones. Bathed in reverb and processing, you might think the strings are electronic, but , it’s actually Roach’s wife, Linda Kohanov. She’s been taking some time out of the saddle of her horses and been sitting down with her electric-viola. Using a Boomerang looper, she layers sensuous lines into repeating cycle, often transposing down into the cello range, giving “The Knowing Place” a shrouded undertow.

   This is a darker, more melancholy track than the other disc. About 36-minutes in, it morphs into a swirling pool of glissando sounds cascading down from liquid dark skies. No sooner are you awash in it all, that a long, deep synth chord wipes it away almost to silence. But now there are still 21-minutes to go, as the track slowly dissipates with stretched chord sequences, again, echoing Structures from Silence.

   You don’t listen to a Steve Roach album like this as much as immerse yourself in its undulating, organic manipulations. You could take Rest of Life as a drifty ambient soundscape or you could dig deeper into its layers and slow evolution while also casting your eyes out further into its epic expanse. -John Diliberto