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Artist: Steve Roach Reviews:
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With Blood Machine and now Core, Steve Roach appears to have awakened a sleeping giant. To my ears, these CDs represent some very exciting and challenging (in the best sense) music. On Core, Steve uses many different elements (analog and digital keyboards, electric guitars, percussion, flutes, and of course his studio wizardry) in a staggeringly well-balanced way - the integration of everything is seamless. Plus, the music (at times) has an almost giddy sense of adventure (and that's such a relief from some sedate and sorrowful ambient music I listen to and review). Mixing his fractal groove rhythms with neo-Berlin sequencer beats and also his sensual tribal textures, all wrapped up in a variety of soundworlds that flow from song to song in an unbroken musical spell, Roach has once again made a believer out of this one-time critic. Core is a stunner in the sheer variety of what the artist puts forth - sometimes within just one song. Take "Wings of Icarus" which morphs into frenetic fractal grooves from the opening tribal/ambient textures. The energy starts building slowly, as several layers of pulsing pseudo-organic beats pound away like rapid-fire impulses travelling along synaptic connections. But, buried under this is, believe it or not, a flavoring of funk! Whoa! Talk about a surprise! And then he folds in some lush washes of minor key ambience - well, hell, it's like he threw out the damn "ambient user's guide" and followed the adage "go for it." And boy, did he go for it! "Train of Thought" is one of my favorite selections. It's another cut that uses beats, but once again Steve (through the use of analog textures that flirt at the song's borders) refuses to be ordinary. Core may be the most "evolutionary" yet "ambient" recording to come along in quite a while. I expect this kind of pulsing yet morphing style from a Germanic artist like Paul Ellis or Thomas Ronkin. But it's something else entirely to hear traces of Berlin melded with more tribal ambient and spacemusic soundscapes. This layering of patented Roach washes and drones into the uptempo rhythms breathes so much life into Core that no matter how many times you listen to it, you probably won't tire of it (I haven't and I'm on my sixth or seventh playing). I could go through every cut and try to describe all the ways that this CD amazed me - from the brilliant engineering of all those rhythmic elements to the skillful way that Steve seems to instinctively know when a riff has played itself out and it's time to inject something new or morph into a whole new melodic sensibility. Another element that I never tired of was the integration of cyber-futurism with neo-tribal organic sensuality. Even though the adroit listener will hear echoes of Blood Machine on some songs, Core is truly a new beast altogether. "Resonation Revelation" is a midtempo dance-rhythm number - like techno but slowed down and covered in mystery and shadow. "So it Goes..." (which, like two other songs, is comprised of two distinct movements) offers up spacy synth effects against a steady backdrop of fractal grooves and an undercurrent of flutes and Roach's patented tribal percussive elements. "Endorphin Dreamtime" veers out into the darkness of Germanic outer space with pulsing sequencers leading you on a hyper-speed cruise in the stars, riding a solar wind of gently fluid washes and chords. "Hyperportal" is just that - hyper! It's a veritable continuous explosion of rhythms and electronic beats that isn't so much like riding a bullet train - it's like BEING the damn bullet train yourself! Core is easily one of the top releases of 2001. It's showcases an artist at literally the top of his game. I'll be the first to admit that I thought Steve had started to repeat himself several years ago. But he has completely re-invented himself as an artist and, in doing so, has also reinvigorated beat-driven ambient music, injecting it with creativity and brilliance. So it only goes to show, old dogs still have some tricks left to teach us after all. Highly recommended!
I've read the liner notes about four times for this album and I still don't know what the hell Steve and Vir are talking about when they describe the term "elegant futurism" or when they recount how this album was made. No matter. This album kicks serious ass and there's no two ways about it. One of the most exciting and ground-breaking CDs of recent years, Blood Machine is positively thrilling, exhilarating and breathtaking as it lays out its cyber-electro-organic psychodrama track after track after track. What a rush this album is! Using the metaphor of blending the human anatomical/biological system with some sort of cyber-futurism as a starting point for the project (if I'm interpreting the liner notes correctly), Blood Machine is, speaking in my own metaphor-laden manner, a sonic version of a 21st century Fantastic Voyage. Beginning with the blistering pace of the rhythms and fractal grooves (a term that, I believe, is used to describe the hyper-speed beats that pepper most of the album) of "Dissolving the Code," the listener is transported into an ultra-fast-paced pulsing soundscape of hummingbird wing-beat-intensity, lush cyber washes of synthesizers, and kinetic electro-rhythms. Wow! This is as invigorating a piece of music as I've heard in a long time. Yet, the organic/electronic nature of the underlying washes is what sets the hook for me. Mesmerizing is the best word to describe it, or maybe even hypnotic. The ambient bliss of the opening of "Evolution," with its beautiful drones and organ-like chords, is soon submerged under some exciting rhythms which are quite unlike the opening track's beats. Steve and Vir totally nailed infusing this music with a bio-organic quality while still keeping it rooted completely in 21st century cyber-music technology. I continue (even after my fifth or sixth listening) to be stunned by how cool this album is. Steve Roach has always been a genius at evolving his long tracks, taking what seems like simple ambient music and shape-shifting it so slowly that only later does the listener realize that the ending point is light years removed from the beginning. On this recording, he and Vir demonstrate time and time again that slow movement through subtle changes can accomplish as much drama as rapid course corrections. I could go on and on describing the other six tracks on Blood Machine. I could wax eloquently about the tribal qualities of "Impulse," (which in its early parts reminded me of the superlative Soma that Steve recorded with Robert Rich) or the cyber-cool "Neurotropic" which counterpoints exotic percussive effects against those hyper-kinetic fractal grooves while spacy washes float above it all. I could also rave about the way classic spacemusic washes caress the air underneath the cosmic funky beats of "Mindheart Infusion." I could write about how I marvel at the wonderful closing cut, "In the Marrow," wherein fractal grooves cruising at an almost light-speed pace are held in check by long washes of warm spacy ambience. But, instead, I'll just say that Blood Machine is a truly amazing album. It manages to break new ground and stake out new territory where I didn't even know the landscape existed. While I know this recording is, at least partially, an evolution of Steve and Vir's earlier collaboration, Body Electric, I think this is a far better album. It's use of rhythms (and those fractal grooves) is jaw-dropping. It's engineered to literal perfection. And it's so much fun to become absorbed in that if I weren't such a motor-mouth, I'd be speechless. Obviously, it merits my highest recommendation! |