Steve Roach
Structures From Silence

Perhaps due to my somewhat solitary and moderately misanthropic nature, I believe that one of the greatest ills of contemporary times is this frantic, useless, and jarring frenzy imposed on us, albeit to varying degrees, by a schizoid, sick, barren, and anything but progressed system. Frenzy in human relationships, in work, with ourselves, often accompanied by disturbing visual bombardments and large doses of cacophonous and unessential sounds. More and more often I need to carve out a space that is just mine; more and more often I feel the need for silence; more and more often I need antidotes: one of the best I know is Steve Roach.

A goldsmith of the most elegant and imaginative ambient music (and beyond) of the last thirty years, Roach has crafted over time jewels of inestimable value utilizing (and shaping them to his path each time) both that golden vein brought fully into the sunlight by Brian Eno, and that inexhaustible deposit of electronic gems from the German cosmic school.

“Structures From Silence” is perhaps the first of his masterpieces and, as the title suggests, it is a veritable compendium (divided into three long suites) on the regenerative and life-giving power of silence in which Steve manages to make plausible the apparent oxymoron of creating music that has the same beneficial and healing effect as the absence of sounds.

With “Reflections in Suspension,” earthly tranquility is explored, and, staying in a state of semi-awakening, lying supinely in a "virgin" grove, we are lulled by a round, uniform, and velvety sound carpet, where the lush and colorful nature is rendered through electronic tinklings akin to the muffled buzzing of small insects and keyboard "curls" that seem to be petals of a cherry tree in bloom that slowly engulf us in a lazy and slow epiphany of the senses.

Starry silence is brought to us by the next piece, “Quiet Friend,” in which, thanks to a very slow synthesizer, we are at the mercy of a gentle cosmic roll in an endless and indefinite drift in intergalactic emptiness.

The gigantic title track (over 28 minutes) closes the circle; we plunge into the most unfathomable and deep abyss there is: ourselves. This "mystical" silence, whose structure is a call and response between very slow high and low reverberations, reverberates through our "inner tuning fork," releasing energetic waves that empty the mind and fill the spirit. An immense stasis of our being and our senses.

A precious album rich in imperceptible nuances, “Structures From Silence” is worthy, in my opinion, to enter the personal "treasure room" of Steve Roach alongside works, although very different, just as valid (“The Magnificent Void” and “World’s Edge”) or with some albums recorded with Robert Rich (“Strata”) and Vidna Obmana (“Well of Souls”). The absolute and unsurpassable pinnacle perhaps remains “Dreamtime Return.”