Steve Roach - Dynamic Stillness - [CD]

A moving meditation on the quiet power inherent in vast spaces. Roach has come back around to the slow-motion terraforming of soundworlds that seem to go on forever, pulling skeins of light through layers of cloud to describe gorgeous imaginary landscapes. It's a blend of soul-surrounding calm edged with dramatic tension; Dynamic Stillness is Roach at his contemplative best, a sure and silent guide coaxing us to follow him into the endless realms inside ourselves." - John Shanahan, Hypnagogue."Mysteriously beautiful, ambient electronic waveforms bridging panorama and parsec. The singularities guiding Roach's hand are now unquestionable - this is breathtaking stuff." - Darren Bergstein, One Thousand Pulses.A vast work that developed over a three year period, evolving in it's own time alongside other simultaneous Roach creations. These eight tracks reach into a realm of amorphous soundworlds filled with a sense of unresolved expansion and mystery, blooming into cloud-like form. An essential inner breath, revealing a mastery within the art of sound creation, bold harmonic structures, silence and sonic space. REVIEW Dynamic Stillness presents ambient-electronic pioneer Steve Roach in the deep end of the pure atmospheric, rhythmless soundscape genre. Across the 2-CD release, amorphous shifting sonics glide in a phenomenal flow, highly cohesive and yet ever-changing. ynamic stillness indeed! These eight long-form tracks (140 minutes in all) undulate softly and slowly, radiating light even as darkness hovers along the edges. It s an album of subtle pieces, more often than not with emphasis on the stillness as opposed to the dynamics. Disc two s closing Canyon Stillness plays like a dark inversion of Structures From Silence. A cold breeze blows through it all like a black mist. After so much softness it makes for a surprisingly chilling, engaging finish. - --Phil Derby, Electroambient Space