Steve Roach

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Steve Roach

Real Name:
Steve Roach
Profile:
A longstanding leader in contemporary electronic music, composer and multi-instrumentalist Steve Roach (born 1955 in La Mesa, California) drew on the beauty and power of the earth's landscapes to create lush, meditative soundscapes influential on the emergence of ambient and trance. A onetime professional motorbike racer born in California in 1955, Roach -- inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis -- taught himself to play synthesizer at the age of 20; debuting in 1982 with the album Now, his early work was quite reminiscent of his inspirations, but with 1984's Structures From Silence his music began taking enormous strides, the album's expansive and mysterious atmosphere inspired directly by the natural beauty of the southwestern U.S. Subsequent works including 1986's three-volume Quiet Music series honed Roach's approach, his dense, swirling textures and hypnotic rhythms akin to environmental sound sculptures. In 1988, inspired by the Peter Weir film The Last Wave, Roach journeyed to the Australian outback, with field recordings of aboriginal life inspiring his acknowledged masterpiece, the double-album Dreamtime Return. A year later, he teamed with percussionist Michael Shrieve and guitarist David Torn for The Leaving Time, an experiment in ambient jazz. After relocating to the desert outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, Roach established his own recording studio, Timeroom, and in the years to follow grew increasingly prolific, creating both as a solo artist and in tandem with artists including Robert Rich, Michael Stearns, Jorge Reyes and Kevin Braheny -- in all, close to two dozen major works in the 1990s alone, all of them located at different points on the space-time continuum separating modern technology and primitive music. His album roster from that decade includes: Strata (1990), Artifacts (1994), Well Of Souls (1995), Amplexus: Collected Works From The 1995 Ltd Series (1997), and Dust To Dust (1998). Early Man was released on Projekt in early 2001, followed by one of his many collaborations with Vidna Obmana.
Sites:
steveroach.com, Bandcamp, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia
In Groups:
Moebius (2), Solitaire (2), Suspended Memories
Variations:
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Steve Roach Discography

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Albums
Steve Roach Now (Album) Not On Label US 1982 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Traveler (Album) Domino Records US 1983 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Structures From Silence (Album) Fortuna Records UK, Europe & US 1984 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Empetus (Album) Fortuna Records Germany 1986 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Quiet Music 3 (Album) Fortuna Records US 1986 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Quiet Music 2 (Album) Fortuna Records Germany 1986 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Quiet Music 1 (Album) Fortuna Records Germany 1986 Sell This Version
Steve Roach / Kevin Braheny / Richard Burmer Steve Roach / Kevin Braheny / Richard Burmer - Western Spaces (Album) Innovative Communication US 1987 Sell This Version
Michael Shrieve / Steve Roach Michael Shrieve / Steve Roach - The Leaving Time (Album) Novus Italy 1988 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Dreamtime Return (Album) Fortuna Records, Fortuna Records US 1988 Sell This Version
Steve Roach / Kevin Braheny / Michael Stearns Steve Roach / Kevin Braheny / Michael Stearns - Desert Solitaire (Album) Fortuna Records US 1989 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Stormwarning - Live In Concert (Album) Soundquest Recordings US 1989 Sell This Version
Steve Roach / David Hudson / Sarah Hopkins Steve Roach / David Hudson / Sarah Hopkins - Australia: Sound Of The Earth (Album) Fortuna Records US 1990 Sell This Version
Robert Rich / Steve Roach Robert Rich / Steve Roach - Strata (Album) Hearts Of Space US 1990 Sell This Version
Steve Roach & Robert Rich Steve Roach & Robert Rich - Soma (Album) Hearts Of Space Europe 1992 Sell This Version
Steve Roach World's Edge (Album) Fortuna Records UK, Europe & US 1992 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Origins (Album) Fortuna Records UK, Europe & US 1993 Sell This Version
Steve Roach Artifacts (Album) Fortuna Records USA, Canada & Europe 1994 Sell This Version
Steve Roach The Dream Circle (Album) Soundquest Recordings US 1994 Sell This Version
Steve Roach / Michael Stearns / Ron Sunsinger Steve Roach / Michael Stearns / Ron Sunsinger - Kiva (Album) Fathom, Fathom US 1995 Sell This Version
Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana - Well Of Souls (Album) Projekt US 1995 Sell This Version
HS11062-2 Steve Roach The Magnificent Void ‎(CD, Album) Fathom HS11062-2 US 1996 Sell This Version
11072-2 Steve Roach / Stephen Kent / Kenneth Newby Steve Roach / Stephen Kent / Kenneth Newby - Halcyon Days ‎(CD, Album) Fathom 11072-2 US 1996 Sell This Version
Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana - Cavern Of Sirens (Album) Projekt US 1997 Sell This Version
11082-2 Steve Roach On This Planet ‎(CD, Album) Fathom 11082-2 US 1997 Sell This Version

Reviews Show All 8 Reviews

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Numanoid

Numanoid

August 13, 2016
The term total genius doesn't even begin to describe Steve Roach.
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ujjaya

ujjaya

September 17, 2015
Where are "Forgotten Gods" (1993) and "Earth Island" (1994) from Steve Roach, Jorge Reyes & Suzo Saiz (a trio who took the name of Suspended Memories). Forgotten Gods is the most live ambient album.
Without Steve and Jorge (RIP) my musical project (Ujjaya) had not exist.
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heisenberg123

heisenberg123

March 7, 2015
so under-rated.
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mrdude

mrdude

August 25, 2012
I've been a long time fan of Steve's work, and one thing I've noticed is that although he is a super talented artist, he is also a painter of sound. If a painter paints a picture of the landscape, you can see the sense of depth and feeling in the picture. Steve paints with sound and you also get the sense of depth and feeling from his sound 'paintings.'

He is the only artist that I know of that can convey this sense of depth and expanse of a landscape into his music.
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etherealflux

etherealflux

October 17, 2011
He is my favorite artist.
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Chroniz

Chroniz

July 24, 2010
edited over 5 years ago
Steve Roach is a magnificent artist and truly a pioneer in the ambient music realm. Alone and together with many colleagues and friends, he has left a mark to the ambient music in its many forms - organic, tribal, infinite soundworlds, the somber soundscapes, minimal works, sequenced syntherizer pieces and desertscapes.

It is quite amazing how he has released numerous works with an incredibly profilic speed - yet most of his works have still been 'excellent', 'great' or at least 'good'. In my books, the number one ambient artist. Missing his works such as Structures From Silence, Dreamtime Return, The Dream Circle, The Magnificent Void, Mystic Chords & Sacred Spaces, Dynamic Stillness and many more, would be a pity. Dare I say, his music might be well known as classic ambient in the late future.
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