Steve Roach: One Day of Forever (CD)

Reviews

1. 

   Reviews Editor – November 7, 2024

   From Spectrum Culture

   Is Steve Roach the Robert Pollard of ambient/electronic? Like the Guided by Voices front man, he got his start relatively late: his first solo album, Now, came out in 1982, the year he turned 27, while his breakthrough, Structures From Silence, bolstered by regular play on the influential New Age radio program Hearts of Space, came two years later. After taking a short break (1985 might be the only year without a Roach album since his debut), Roach has proceeded with Pollard-like productivity, releasing multiple albums per year, working by himself or with a wide range of like-minded collaborators. By this reviewer’s rough calculations, One Day of Forever marks Roach’s fifth album this year, which is nearly double the three that GBV put out in 2023.

   And like Pollard, Roach has a signature sound that he sticks with – in this case, drifting synth tones that move like clouds through long, patient compositions. It can be soothing and reflective, which is how it found favor with the crystals and incense crowd in the ‘80s, but it has a sense of space and emotional depth that gives it a curious focus and lambent intensity. Many rock refugees and classical castaways turned out a wispy New Age album or two during the genre’s commercial peak in the Reagan years, but Roach has devoted most of his life to it. Also, like Pollard, Roach’s consistent musical language can hold a surprising amount of variety within its narrow template. He can conjure neon sequencer workouts (1986’s Empetus) and plumb the depths of the cosmic well with dark drones and electromagnetic textures (1996’s The Magnificent Void). He even took up the didgeridoo for techno-tribal explorations in the vein of a more approachable Jon Hassell on (1988’s Dreamtime Return).

   Lately, Roach has moved more fully into full-bore ambience, and One Day of Forever doesn’t depart from this trend. It consists of four long tracks (two are around 20 minutes each; the shortest clocks in at nine), full of carefully paced, slowly unfurling harmonies and spectral melodies that manifest fleetingly, as if arising from a sinuous mist. Roach uses some familiar technology with new twists: a digital version of a Mellotron and a new model of an Oberheim synth (the latter of which, along with LinnDrum machines, essentially defined the sound of a certain segment of ‘80s music). Used in a rock or pop context, the Mellotron has a warbly, old-fashioned glow – the instrumental equivalent of a log fire. Here, it’s set against cavernous reverb and, combined with the long-held notes that Roach deploys, it possesses a melancholy sheen that’s far from its usual retro whimsy. The Oberheim, meanwhile, usually a fountain of pungent warmth (think Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” or Prince’s “1999”), sounds somber and glasslike, even funereal in parts. The modern recreation of these old sounds combines with Roach’s methodical playing and shimmering production to create an unsettling mix of the old and new – a sound that’s not slick or modern, but which also lacks the easy nostalgia of a pre-silicon world.

   The album’s bookended by two linked tracks: “All I Know” and “All I Feel.” The former, six minutes longer than the first (does this imply Roach knows more than he feels?) is built on a keening two-note figure that sounds like a lingering question. The end of the high second note lingers and fluctuates, its decaying ache sometimes troubling the harmonic passages that reach for sweetness without really getting there. Does the question grow more menacing or more forlorn as it’s repeatedly dissolved and resurrected? It’s hard to say for sure, but such ambiguity has always haunted Roach’s work, giving even his most blissed-out trance treks a complex undertow, and this continues to be the case. “All I Feel” contains echoes of that yearning motif, now surrounded by cushiony, vaguely orchestral textures. Electric viola from Linda Kohanov, a horse trainer who’s written several books about equines (and who is married to Roach), adds a possible resolution to Roach’s nagging question, permeating the track with a gritty splendor. Harmonium by Serena Gabriel also contributes to the richer feel, cutting the melancholy of the synths with a burbling rumination. “All I Feel” may be shorter than “All I Know,” but it’s also broader and deeper.

   “One Day,” the shortest track at just over nine minutes, also features Kohanov’s electric viola, now juxtaposed against rumbling, monolithic chords. The contrast of the viola’s plaintive buzz (bolstered by layers of echo) makes for a piece that resembles a combination of John Luther Adams and Cluster at their most stark – the sound of long durations and deep distance, a small piece of an unfathomable cycle. “Slow Emotion,” on the other hand, appears to be all macrocosm, a static succession of barely changing notes, background radiation with no signal. But underneath its massive hum, a small kernel of awe smolders, Roach’s innate sense of wonder refusing to be extinguished.

   The environmental surround of One Day of Forever may lack the syncopation and particularity of Roach’s most celebrated work, and its subtle flow may strongly resemble many of his recent ambient albums. But as its title suggests, it’s just a small drop in a vast sea, a fragment of a bigger panorama, to be grasped and then let go. Nothing is forever, but at least forever changes, a little at a time. -Reed Jackson

2. 

   Reviews Editor – October 29, 2024

   From Chain DLK

   Steve Roach’s One Day of Forever arrives like a deep exhalation into timelessness. Recorded with a minimalistic touch that feels as expansive as the open desert spaces Roach calls home, the album immerses listeners in lush ambient layers and enveloping warmth. Its ethereal tones appear to stretch the limits of time itself, perhaps best expressed in the opening track, “All I Know”, where a gently looping melody unfolds across 19 minutes of celestial quietude.

   Roach’s masterful integration of the Mellotron and Oberheim synthesizers with organic textures from Linda Kohanov’s electric viola and Serena Gabriel’s harmonium gives the album a delicate richness that is equal parts ambient, classical, and cosmic. It’s a sonic journey that “pulls back the layers of memory, time, and perception”, allowing listeners to linger in an eternal present moment. In “One Day”, Kohanov’s viola glides through the synth haze, creating a melancholic, cinematic contrast, while in “All I Feel”, the harmonium’s gentle breathing feels like an ancient ritual in sonic form.

   Roach’s vision, in his own words, is “to connect to a sense of forever in our own individual ways”, and this album resonates with that transcendental intention. Each note feels like a soft meditation, a reverie on the “moments between moments”, making One Day of Forever an evocative, soul-stirring experience – a reminder of the beauty found in life’s quiet, infinitesimal spaces. More than just music, this album is a sensory, almost spiritual offering, inviting listeners to linger in the subtle, amber-lit spaces of emotion. For those familiar with Roach’s oeuvre, One Day of Forever is a fresh chapter in his ever-evolving and evergreen canon, balancing the timeless with the transient in a way only Roach can. Rating: 4.5/5 -Vito Camarretta

3. 

   Reviews Editor – October 4, 2024

   From Exposé

   From the opening expansive chords of “All I Know,” it’s clear that this haunting cyclical piece will be another powerful entry in the ongoing Steve Roach canon, a purely atmospheric piece that opens doorways into mysterious worlds not unlike many that he has opened before. But it’s the second track, “Slow Emotion,” that seals the deal, a mystifying dreamworld that shifts and swoops with beautiful intensity, a complex multi-layered sonic telegram that travels directly to the listener’s soul, a patchwork of elements that obscure one another while offering vague glimpses into what lies on the other side of each ongoing measure. Both of these first two cuts are well over nineteen minutes each, and define the ground that Roach is mining for this latest epic, which uses Oberheim OB-X8 and a Swedish digital Mellotron replica, among many other instruments, electronic and acoustic, all heavily processed.
   
   One might be reminded of his two-disc epic Reflections in Repose from earlier this year, though this is even more condensed — five long tracks across a single disc. “In Twilight’s Shadow” seems to recap some of the ideas explored on the opener, then things begin to change. In a duet with electric violist Linda Kohanov, new dark textures and mysterious semblances are explored on “One Day,” offering a mesmerizing and, dare I say, spooky hypnotic trance that guides the listener further down the walls of the great spiral, into the emptiness below. The album closer is the thirteen-plus minute “All I Feel,” again featuring Kohanov as well as Serena Gabriel on harmonium in a piece that in some ways is reminiscent of the opener, but with a stronger melodic presence. Throughout, there are no sequencers or arpeggiators, percussion or cadence of any kind, everything in this soundworld just floats beautifully like breathing the warm air of the night. -Peter Thelen

4. 

   Reviews Editor – October 4, 2024

   From Rockerilla

   There is no change of season without a new Steve Roach CD. The autumn of 2024 sees the prolific American musician release a new chapter in the ‘purely atmospheric’ series, One Day of Forever. Five long tracks on which Roach returns to deal with the dynamics of the drone, moving between nostalgia, joy, melancholy and gratitude. The rediscovery of an old mellotron (in a new all-Swedish version) is the inspiration for the night mantras in the lineup, then arranged with the inevitable Oberheim OB-X8. One Day features the collaboration of his friend Linda Kohanov on violin. On the track that closes the album, All I Feel, the vocals are by Serena Gabriel. INFINITE REPEAT. -Roberto Mandolini