Product Description
2 Sensual Sonic
3 The Nurturing Ground
4 Heart of Compassion
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Chain DLK: "This is not music that asks to be listened to in the conventional sense. Instead, it invites you to dwell inside it, to let its slow, expansive currents carry you beyond yourself. Roach has long been a master of creating environments rather than compositions, and here, his “essentialist” approach is at full bloom. Every note, every pulse, every breath of sound feels necessary, unburdened by excess." -Vito Camarretta
As a significant metaphor in Steve Roach’s sonic milieu, the ever-evolving sky inspired these lush ambient layers of enveloping atmospheric warmth. The album’s four longform compositions slowly unfurl harmonic wonder and timeless spectral melodies balanced with grounded mantra-like rhythmic elements; all combine with a yearning to merge into infinite realms of epiphany and expansion.
Created in his desert ridgetop Timehouse studio which looks out onto a vast distant horizon — equal parts land and sky — The Reverent Sky reflects Roach’s ongoing dialogue with the worlds beyond the studio, his artistic process shaped by the panoramic vistas outside and the unbound inspiration within. Perched amidst this breathtaking view as he creates, Roach infuses his music with the subtle yet profound transitions at the very heart of this auditory journey: the light of daybreak to evening twilight, sunrise to sunset and the ethereal transitions into the deep of the night’s sky.
The dynamic and emotional spectrums reveal a profound sense of intimacy, grace, beauty, longing and mystery in a style Roach refers to as ‘essentialism.’ He reflects, “This is about retaining only what is vital and essential to the creation of each piece as a pure and deeply emotive sonic sensory experience. The evolution of essentialism in my artistic philosophy is fully present in the recent releases As It Is, Rest Of Life, Reflections In Repose and One Day Of Forever.”
Born from his hand-sculpting of sound, the music is formed on hardware instruments. They are the heart of his unique and personal palette of colors which paint the reverent sky with the Oberheim Xpander and OB-6, Mellotron – Resch Edition, Hydrasynth Deluxe, Novation Bass Station II, Nord Lead 2X, Roland TR-8S, Yamaha CP33 Electric Grand and for the first time in his work, the innovative Osmose Synth by Expressive E.
Manifesting pure atmospheric reverie balanced with a timeless pulse, Roach remains a constant innovator in the world of ambient electronic music. His work connects and expresses the world around us and the realms within.
Reviews Editor –
From Igloo
For adepts of Steve Roach‘s soundworld the sky in all its protean nature is a familiar leitmotif from over five decades of his work. Latest installment, The Reverent Sky, has four stretches of harmonic strata and spectral melody extend in enveloping swathes with occasional rhythmic infusions, articulating, in Roachean pukka, “a yearning to merge into infinite realms of epiphany and expansion.“
Crafted in his Timehouse studio on a desert ridgetop looking out onto a vast horizon, The Reverent Sky reflects Roach’s ongoing dialogue with the extra-studio world, an artistic process “shaped by the panoramic vistas outside and the unbound inspiration within.” The music is infused with the phase shifts at its heart—daybreak’s light to vespertine, sunrise to sunset and its aetherial movement to the nocturnal. Dynamic-emotive spectra reveal a strong sense of beauty and grace, mystery and longing in what Roach dubs “essentialism,” “retaining only what is vital and essential to the creation of each piece as a pure and deeply emotive sonic sensory experience,” a style whose evolution is evident in recent works like Rest of Life, As it Is, Reflections in Repose and One Day of Forever.
As the title track’s harmonic undulations dawn and dissolve like first light loops over land, navigating The Reverent Sky’s long-form quartet feels like experiencing the eponymous entity in its elemental moods. A sense of infinity emerges as microtonalities circulate in celestial Brownian motion; euphonic otherworldly transport, moving within and without and between, low-end pressure and a diaphanous array of sonic vectors. “Sensual Sonic” sustains the immersion, adding a percussive undercurrent, iridescent swirls and environmentalia upwelling along the way. “The Nurturing Ground” comes on like a geological exhalation from the desert itself, oblique rhythms emergent from the void (magnificent, natch) like slo-mo tides, as much sensed as heard, wrought from future-arcane artifacts. “Heart of Compassion” closes in the most luminous fusion of melody and ambience with a sense of resolution, a tenor akin to the opener’s, its sounds more recondite, psychoactive, cycling between sound planes.
In sum, The Reverent Sky reaffirms Roach’s status as (inter-)stellar sonic explorer, layering various strands of his stylistic armory into a mesmeric tableau of oneiric ambience offset with a timeless pulse. Like all his best work, it “connects and expresses the world around us and the realms within,” not demanding so much as offering itself—to be dwelt inside, to let its drifting expanses transport us. -Alan Lockett
Reviews Editor –
From Willamette Week
No matter how many albums New Age ambient legend Steve Roach releases in a year, he somehow always leaves us wanting more. His latest morsel for the masses evokes the vast expanses and dusty foreboding of his Arizona home through each gorgeously blooming drone and carefully considered melody line he teases out of his library of synthesizers. Don’t just leave this on in the background while you do other things—immerse yourself in each warm, slowly building moment of it. -Robert Ham
Reviews Editor –
From Rockerilla
There is a red line that links some of the American musician’s recent works (As It Is, Rest Of Life, Reflections In Repose, One Day Of Forever), and it is that of the horizon to be admired in the boundless skies of southern Arizona. Following the same line, Steve Roach composed the four long tracks of The Reverent Sky: the languid ballad that gives the title to the collection; the lunar groove of the psychedelic Sensual Sonic; the synthetic labyrinth of The Nurturing Ground; and the blinding drone of Heart Of Compassion. The list of synthesizers used for the recordings is unmissable, among which stand out Mellotron, Roland TR- 8S, Yamaha CP33 Electric Grand and the latest purchase, the Osmose Synth. To be listened to all night in INFINITE REPEAT. -Roberto Mandolini
Reviews Editor –
From Musique Machine
The Reverent Sky is a new four-track album from important and prolific US ambient artist Steve Roach. The four lengthy tracks move from layer-shifting/ expansive affairs to blends of low-key beats and ambience. And I must say it’s another wholly engaging ride from Roach- who is now in his seventh decade, with over two hundred plus albums under his belt.
As with a large chunk of Mr Roach’s work over the twenty-plus years- this album appears on the Projekt label. The CD release comes presented in a blue, black, white and grey-coloured four-panel digipak. Taking in cover artwork of a distant sea-bound horizon- so a simple, yet effective but of packaging.
For the album kit wise Roach is playing: Oberheim Xpander and OB-6, Mellotron – Resch Edition, Hydrasynth Deluxe, Novation Bass Station II, Nord Lead 2X, Roland TR-8S, Yamaha CP33 Electric Grand and for the first time in his work, the innovative Osmose Synth by Expressive E.
The album has an immersive run time of seventy-four minutes and fourteen seconds. With the four tracks lasting between eleven and nearly twenty-seven minutes. We open with the title track- which is the second longest piece here at just shy of twenty-five minutes. It opens with a selection of gliding and warming ambient sweeps- these are bright, fairly rapid, with a nice feeling of light reverb present. In time we get the introduction of subtle/light piano notation- which becomes slowly blended in with the ambience. When playing this track I get a feeling of both a travelling glow and past times elegance – like taking just a summer dawn-breaking road trip, as you driving past a seemingly endless, ancient, and ornate fence which lines lush green and untouched fields.
Next, we have “Sensual Sonic”- here we find a blend of steadily sweeping and droning tones on the mid to low end. Pitch wise these blend didgeridoo-like droning, climbing simmers, and slow wavering oscillation. Just tied to the track is a steady chopping ‘n’ snapping electro beat- at points, it seems to slow, and almost disappear- I’m not sure if this is really occurring- or if it’s down the way the ambient tones seem ebbing/stretching the structure of the whole thing – either way, it’s a wonderful spellbinding track.
Track three is “The Nurturing Ground” which is the longest track here at nearly twenty-six minutes. It pairs a compacted and compressed skittering-to-knocking beat line with a subdued and drifting map of tolling drifts, haunting warbles, flute ebbs, and harmonic glides.
Finally, we have “Heart Of Compassion” Here we find a blend of mid-ranged tonal sweeps ‘n’ ebbs, subtle( almost) guitar-like twangs, and gentle tip-tapping piano key motifs. This is a glorious luscious end to the album. The addition of piano elements throughout this album is something quite fresh and distinctive for Roach.
The Reverent Sky is another compelling album from Mr Roach- which sees him lightly experimenting/expanding with his ambient craft. I do hope we hear more of the piano elements in future albums, as it’s a most effective addition to his sound worlds. Rating: 4/5 -Roger Batty
Reviews Editor –
From Exposé
[excerpted from a multi-album review]
The newest of the two is The Reverent Sky, a collection of four lengthy studio pieces, each completely distinct from the others, all reflecting on past accomplishments but also pointing the way to the future. This time Roach leaves a full accounting of all of the instruments used in the production, mostly a long list of synthesizers, electric grand and Mellotron, plus various production stations. No drums or didgeridoos this time, though there are plenty of percussive sounds as needed. The 25-minute title track opens the set, a glowing, beautifully melodic and otherworldly drift that carries the listener into the deep space regions, wandering inward and outward and all points in between, the low bass sounds and shimmering wall of myriad forces pulling in all directions is completely immersive, with no hint of percussion anywhere within ear’s reach. That will change with the appropriately titled eleven-minute “Sensual Sonic,” where gentle hand drum-like percussion flows through the entire piece, while kaleidiscopic swirls and mysterious floating sounds follow the listener through its duration, with even more colorful surprises as the end approaches. “The Nurturing Ground” grows slowly out of darkness, an introspective meditation of the highest order, where gentle percussion intertwines with fleeting melodic washes and mysterious sonic artifacts — it’s a perfect companion for traveling the paths and crevices of the long inward spiral. The gripping album closer, “Heart of Compassion,” flows with stunning beauty, much like fabric of the title track, though here sounds are far more mysterious and hallucinatory, drifting in and out of several different planes of sound. -Peter Thelen
Reviews Editor –
From Chain DLK
Somewhere in the vastness of the desert, where the horizon stretches its arms in an unbroken embrace, The Reverent Sky unfolds – not as an album, but as an atmosphere, a breath, a way of being. Steve Roach, ambient pioneer, sonic sculptor, and eternal seeker of the ineffable, invites us once more into a world where time does not move in linear steps but drifts, dissolves, and reforms like cirrus clouds reshaping themselves in the endless dome above.
This is not music that asks to be listened to in the conventional sense. Instead, it invites you to dwell inside it, to let its slow, expansive currents carry you beyond yourself. Roach has long been a master of creating environments rather than compositions, and here, his “essentialist” approach is at full bloom. Every note, every pulse, every breath of sound feels necessary, unburdened by excess.
The album’s four long-form pieces – each an odyssey in its own right – are structured like a journey through the shifting states of the sky itself. The title track, “The Reverent Sky”, opens the experience with nearly 25 minutes of gently undulating harmonics, slowly emerging and dissolving like dawn’s first light brushing against the landscape. There’s a sense of openness here, of infinite space, as Roach’s beloved Oberheim synths and Mellotron tones weave a kind of celestial calligraphy in the air.
Then comes “Sensual Sonic”, a shorter yet deeply immersive piece where textures thicken, layers fold into one another, and melody begins to emerge like faint footprints on a shifting dune. There is a pulse here – not in the form of overt rhythm, but in the way the sounds themselves seem to inhale and exhale. It’s intimate yet boundless, a paradox Roach has spent decades perfecting.
On “The Nurturing Ground”, we enter the longest phase of the journey – a nearly 26-minute meditation that feels as though it were composed by the wind itself. The music breathes with the patience of geological time, as if sculpted from the very essence of the desert’s stillness. Subtle rhythmic elements begin to emerge like the slow-moving tide of an unseen ocean, their presence felt more than heard.
And then, the closing piece, “Heart of Compassion”, where melody and atmosphere reach their most luminous equilibrium. There’s a weightless sense of resolution, an arrival at a place that feels both distant and deeply familiar. It is not an ending, but a continuation, a transition into the next unfolding moment.
What makes The Reverent Sky remarkable is its ability to evoke without imposing. There are no dramatic shifts, no sudden gestures – only the feeling of being suspended in something vast, something that speaks in a language older than words. This is Roach at his most elemental, drawing not just from his decades-long career as a sonic explorer, but from the land, the air, and the shifting moods of the sky itself.
For those who have followed Roach’s journey, this album will feel like the continuation of a sacred dialogue. For newcomers, it is an invitation into a place where time slows, breath deepens, and the world – just for a moment – feels infinite. -Vito Camarretta