Possible Planet
Steve Roach
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| Name | Artist | Time | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
First Murmer | Steve Roach | 16:01 | Album Only | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Gestation | Steve Roach | 31:26 | Album Only | View In iTunes |
|
3 |
Cell Memory | Steve Roach | 25:52 | Album Only | View In iTunes |
| Total: 3 Songs |
Album Review
The cover of On This Planet offers two of the many faces of Earth. One is a craggy, misty place of eerie cold, the other a wind-worn ancient desertscape. Both extremes are intense and lonely, yet extremely inviting in their inhospitableness. It is like being drawn toward the knife. Challenging "dark ambient" composer Steve Roach asks you to experience his compositions loud. This is no unobtrusive sonic background, but a sound atlas to the nether regions. His creations are wrought with didgeridoo, clay pots and other varied percussion, synthesizers, conversation, and electronic respirations. This is a condensation of material developed for and through his 1997 tour. On the basis of the evidence presented here, listeners who missed the tour should rue the day they passed up any opportunities to witness it.
Customer Reviews
Analog Masterpiece
Steve Roach takes a departure from his norm and creates a completelu analog album, which mimics the sounds one might hear listening the the bubbling of the primordial soup or the stirrings of early cell life. The album certainly draws you in and transports you to the early chaos of emerging life - not an ambient piece to really use as background music, but a great one if you just want something to help you think or would like to be transported down the soundcurrent to our first stirrings....
Near-great execution of an intriguing concept
I think of Possible Planet as an aural biography of the beginning of life. "First Murmur" alternately percolates and thrums as it describes the inception of biological life. It is possibly the best piece of ambient music I have heard. Utterly evocative of the concept, it is a captivating, even exciting work. Unfortunately, the rest of the CD does not meet the same standard. Coming after the superlative and musically dynamic "First Murmur," "Gestation" in its half hour long format bogs down. It is an accurate rendering of the concept, but as its title implies, the pace is slow and development of the theme is necessarily restricted. However, considered on its own, it is a successful work. "Cell Memory" recapitulates and combines the themes from both works. First Murmur - 5 stars Gestation - 3 stars Cell Memory - 3 stars CD as a whole - 4 stars First Murmur is worth the price of the whole CD - absolutely essential ambient listening.
Biography
Born: 1955 in California
Genre: New Age
Years Active: '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s
Top Albums and Songs By Steve Roach
- $9.99
- Genres: Electronic, Music, Classical, Modern Composition
- Released: Sep 16, 1997
- ℗ 2005 steve roach
