Destination Beyond

Album Review

Destination Beyond features another of electro-acoustic musician Steve Roach's long-form works. At over 71 minutes, it is filled with multi-layered, drifting soundscapes, ghostly keyboards, and shimmering ambience. There isn’t anything wrong with that; Roach has always made his records stand out from those who attempt to imitate him, and from his peers who he’s left in the primordial dust of his lonesome path forward. There is a repetitive multi-structured keyboard pattern at work in various phases of "Destination Beyond" that functions almost as a mantra — a pulsing line somewhat reminiscent of Tangerine Dream's prime work in the 1970s, but it doesn’t sound like a sequencer, or even a machine for that matter. It functions instead like a beckoning mantra, a vocal encounter with what Roach calls “the magnetic pull and drive towards the point on the horizon.” Early on in the work it becomes more pronounced, making itself not only present but seemingly fully formed. It proves elusive, however. Even though he employs it, he does so suggestively, trying to make the listener “see” that same place he does, and how alluring it is. It is not a mirage or an illusion, but something with form and substance that calls incessantly to the heart of the artist. It all but drops out in places and Roach follows on, trying to get a glimpse of it again, knowing somehow that it is right there, obscured by the sonic clouds he invokes. The listener roots for him to take hold of this sound and embed it firmly into his traveler’s pouch, but that would be to defeat the purpose of Roach’s intention. He is trying to show process and what drives him, and he does so very successfully here. When the voice of the pattern disappears into a formless void in the middle and then into a blissful kind of acceptance of its elusiveness at the end of the piece, the listener glimpses the inner journey and can do what Roach does: look in and keep on following whatever trace remains. There are many electronic artists out there, all trying to achieve effect. Roach doesn’t attempt to achieve anything; he simply goes about his way and follows his muse without distraction, creating work after work of engaging, creative excellence.