“This is a superb introspective journey that flows with all the poetry of a music to be heard with the stillness of its movements”
1 Destination Beyond 71:41
(DDL 71:41) (V.F. )
(Tribal Ambient, Zen Music)
The synth wind of musical West sweeps dry dunes and flies over, like shadows of American eagles, the vestiges of a world where the musical poetry is the meeting point between the breathes of an ethereal daydreaming to the flexible rhythms of a spiritual trance. With DESTINATION BEYOND, Steve Roach pursues his quest for a transcendent music which amalgamates the Zen thought to hypnotico-trance rhythms with cunning clothes which cogitate in an elixir of serenity. A skillful blend of the sof and dark tranquility of Dynamic Stillness with the surging, but controlled, bustle of Arc of Passion. Simply divine! A dark and slightly fleeting sound wave opens the opening bars of Destination Beyond which stretches out into an epic 72-minute long track. The synth is of crystalline breaths which ululate with grace through the stigmas of an illusory desert. Very early on we perceive these enveloping and undulating strata which characterized the splendid and untraceable Western Spaces released in 1986 on Innovative Communication. The sound comes close to it! And we let ourselves be carried away by this gentle influx of sound which smolders increasing pulsations at the ends sounding like these electronic rattlesnake tails which intermingle with a weighted heaviness in layers with angelic sounds. Steve Roach's world evolves with his musical convictions. Here, there is no salvation for musical immobilism. DESTINATION BEYOND swarms with a life of punchy oscillations which are engulfed by enveloping and crystalline strata with morphic curves. But the intensity of these ethereal layers neither stifle nor silence the resonances and the pulsations of rattlesnakes which abound in this acoustic fauna with the stamped diversities so complex at the musical fairs of the American synthesist. Obviously, everything is not similar, nor linear! Steve Roach brings subtle variances where the rhythm gets isolated, bringing a movement of soft hypnotic trance, and sometimes disappears to leave all the place to superb and unctuous layers which twist in a cerebral cortex high in phonic forms. At times, this poetic tenderness is violent and does justice with such an oblong linearity that we find ourselves very close to Morpheus.
In short, another stroke of genius from Steve Roach who year after year continues to amaze on the same sound themes but with approaches as tumultuous as softness can afford. DESTINATION BEYOND is a superb introspective journey that flows with all the poetry and wisdom of the master of music thought and designed to be heard with the stillness of its movements.
Sylvain Lupari (November 28th, 2009) ****¼*
Available at Projekt Records
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