Release data:

Steve Roach – World’s Edge
CD/DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, Fortuna Records/Timeroom Editions, 1992

The double album “World’s Edge” is a transitional work of inspired ambient music, also Steve’s first solo project created after his move to Tucson, Arizona in 1990.
It’s an in-depth and intense journey merging the expansive soundscape delights from “Dreamtime Return” and “The Magnificent Void”, while also incorporaring the tribal vibes of “Artifacts” and “Early Man” along the intrinsic power of desert ambiences found on the collaborative projects “Western Spaces” and “Desert Solitaire”. Moreover, the sophisticated blend of acoustic and electronic instrumentation displayed here merges the organic and the spacious realms beautifully, painting environmental landscapes for the mind while venturing into the deep unknown.

The soundquest of the first disc already is quite trance-inducing with its moody tribal percussion and fluid morphing textural spheres addressing the edge of mystery. Here, “Undershadow” and “When Soul Roam” are just two of the ten fine tracks that drift and stroll beautifully across the threshold toward a drony netherworld.

Highly atmospheric but tranquil sonic vapour is curling up on the second disc, featuring one continuous 60-minute track composed by Steve and Robert Rich. “To the Threshold of Silence” simply glows of immersive and dreamy desert ambiences that connect with the classic “Structures from Silence” while it also shows significant influences from Tibetan ceremonial music all combined to created a kind of ancient-modern sacred space immersion.

Simply put, on this recording Roach’s visceral sound current sketching out landscapes of the earth and beyond moves onward in a most pleasing manner.

Website: www.steveroach.com

You can see what reviews I have done of this artist on the Steve Roach artist page