Steve Roach -- Structures from Silence

10/10

When I was a small child, I hated singing of any kind...but I loved music. Go figure. Always been some weird kind of rebel. Back in the early 80's, Baton Rouge's public radio/NPR station actually played music in addition to all the talk radio, with classical music taking up the lion's share during the week. Jazz played throughout the day Saturday (broken up by a little Car Talk in the morning), and as night descended, the brassy tones downshifted into deep, mysterious music that seemed to pour from the depths of space itself. Indeed, this was "space music," aired by Hearts of Space, a syndicated program hosted by one, Stephen Hill. Even as a small child, my body had the same hatred and disdain for sleep it does now (I pulled my first all-nighter book read in the second grade), and I often, long after the rest of my family had drifted into dreams, made it to Hill's late-night farewell, "Safe journeys, space fans... wherever you are." I'm in my bed in the middle of a cane field in rural Louisiana, and I'm eight, I thought. Also, what the hell am I doing here? All the other kids my age like country music, and their biggest aspiration is to be able to chew as big a wad of Skoal as their dad does.  Yep, weird kid. Much less weird now.
I immediately acquired a love for the strange blend of ambient and new age music 89.3 FM played late Saturday nights, though I seldom knew the identity of the artists creating that music. I just imagined it was actually coming from space.
Turns out that music was actually coming from Earth, and much of it was created by someone called Steve Roach. I heard his name enough, and also, "Roach" is memorable enough to an eight-year-old, that when I could eventually acquire music for myself, I was able to seek out his work. After some research, one album of his albums in particular featured music I remembered the most: 1984's Structures from Silence.
Structures from Silence features only three tracks, but nearly a full hour of music. The album begins with "Reflections in Suspension," a deep, searching, meditative track of heavy, repeating synth layers and ambient sounds of flowing water. Roach develops things brilliantly, so that the synth patterns seem to be coming round and round identically, and yet, there are subtle changes in the way they react with one another each time, to the point that the more conflicted, worried, confused tones early in the track feel resolved and at peace 16-minutes later, as the track ends. "Reflections in Suspension" is like a mental storm, tidal waves of clashing thoughts that resolve into clarity, a calm equilibrium, sunshine breaking through grey clouds onto a still sea. It's a staggering piece of work.
Structures from Silence's middle piece, "Quiet Friend," at 13:15, is also its shortest, a pulsing, haunting track that slowly adds new layers, until all gives way to a crystalline, shimmering keyboard line at the end, like slowly padding alone across an unfamiliar, dark alien landscape, only to come across an inviting cave full of glistening gems.
This takes us into the near half-hour album-closing title-track. "Structures from Silence" has strange metaphysical properties--I've felt like it ended just after I've turned it on before, and I've felt so lost in it, it's gone on for an eternity. The track has repeating home notes like binary stars, and a warm encircling orbiting planet of a motif, streaked by bits of gorgeous synthesized detritus. Time disappears, is swallowed. Is created. What kind of album is this?

It's one that sounds just as good to me at 38 as it did at eight.

(NOTE: THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE 2001 PROJEKT REMASTER)
1984 Fortuna/2001 Projekt
1. Reflections in Suspension 16:39
2. Quiet Friend 13:15
3. Structures from Silence 28:33