Jazz Articles
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Steve Roach: Early Man/Early Man, Decomposed
by AAJ Staff
Last fall Steve Roach released the first edition of Early Man as a collectors' item, a single CD encased in two slabs of slate rock. There were only 1000 copies made of this, and since there was demand for a more accessible format for this music, Roach arranged to re-release the album in a conventional CD case from the Projekt label. Not only has he done this, he has added another CD, called Early Man, Decomposed in which he takes ...
read moreSteve Roach and "Vir Unis": Body Electric
by AAJ Staff
Roach fans, this is your wake-up call! After the calm ambient depths of SLOW HEAT and the Western driftwood of DUST TO DUST , BODY ELECTRIC bursts into the soundscape with a driving exultant rush. Not since 1997's ON THIS PLANET has Roach, along with his excellent collaborator “Vir Unis" and other fine sidemen, produced such compelling, percussion-driven work. This one's got it all: electronic growls, clangs, drums and rattles, industrial noise, mystical hoots, Robert Rich-like “glurp," sounding stones and ...
read moreSteve Roach: Midnight Moon
by AAJ Staff
Steve Roach, the brilliantly creative Arizona-based electronic composer, is always ready to try new sounds. In his Dust to Dust (Projekt, 1998), collaborating with Western guitarist and producer Roger King, he re-created the twangy guitar sound of the American West in the characteristic Roach style of vast drifting ambient. Here in Midnight Moon he continues that sound, though without the drama and storytelling of Dust. This is pure ambient, devoid of rhythm, very slow- paced, somnolent and repetitive. Composed mainly ...
read moreSteve Roach: Midnight Moon
by AAJ Staff
Steve Roach, the brilliantly creative Arizona-based electronic composer, is always ready to try new sounds. In his Dust to Dust (Projekt, 1998), collaborating with Western guitarist and producer Roger King, he re-created the twangy guitar sound of the American West in the characteristic Roach style of vast drifting ambient. Here in Midnight Moon he continues that sound, though without the drama and storytelling of Dust. This is pure ambient, devoid of rhythm, very slow- paced, somnolent and repetitive. Composed mainly ...
read moreVidna Obmana: Memories Compiled2
by John W. Patterson
This European ambient synths composer is easily one of the best out there. I have heard many a so-called “ambient” work that just left me flat-eared and ennui-laden, reaching for the remote to switch discs. Not so for Obmana’s creations. They light-shimmer, wave-sparkle, synths-ing, heart-echo, and brain-drone just exactly the right mix of off-world and terrestrial brilliance. I must mention folks like Steve Roach, Jeff Johnson, Jeff Greinke, Richard Bone, Harold Budd, and Brain Eno. Obmana is influenced by or ...
read moreVidna Obmana: Crossing the Trail
by John W. Patterson
Belgian composer, Dirk Serries, aka vidnaObmana has crafted a well polished, smooth stone that glistens in the river of Sound. His minimalist, trancewalk, dreamtime whispers on Crossing the Trail rates right up there with Steve Roach, Robert Rich, and Nik Tyndall, to mention just a few. In fact, Roach guests on this release having collaborated with vidnaObmana in past creations.Seamless, drifting, boundless, lilting, waves and rivulets of sound wash over you in the 69 plus minutes, that pass ...
read moreJeff Greinke: Cities In Fog
by John W. Patterson
This release sees a remastered version of Jeff's first album on disc one and new material, '95-'97 on disc two. This is dark, brooding, expansive ambience at its droning best. It is an aural diary of inner reflections upon the “everyday sounds and their inherent beauty" quoting Greinke. This is not ethnic, percussive, trance music. This IS THE trance, the soundscape of underwater trains and ether dreams.Let me diverge on the visionary worlds these pieces elucidate for me. ...
read moreJeff Fayman & Robert Fripp: A Temple in the Clouds
by Michael Askounes
Robert Fripp is like a box of chocolates. One minute he's the evil scientist pumping out some of the most intense and disturbing metal ever recorded with the boys in King Crimson, and the next minute he's a new age disciple using his guitar to create incredibly soothing and “healing" textures. A Temple in the Clouds - a collaboration with keyboardist Jeffrey Fayman - would fall in the latter camp as it is a collection of Fripp's patented “Soundscapes" mixed ...
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