Back catalogue: Modern Classical

Review: It's hard to believe that Steve Roach's landmark space ambient exploration is now four decades young. Emphasis on the young, considering we're getting new releases through that sound pretty similar. No disrespect to those that do - the point is Structures From Silence was so massively ahead of its time it still feels like the rest of us are catching up. Floating on a dust ring somewhere close to Saturn, maybe, this is lush, dreamy, cosmic synth stuff to lose yourself in. Just be sure there's a yurt close by, because this one's all about lying down and staring into your own thoughts. An exercise in escapism, without needing to move a muscle. In 2025, there's plenty of off-world talk as Earth buckles under the weight of capitalism. Little do they know some of us left that place behind decades ago.

Review: Space ambient stalwart Steve Roach first released Dreamtime Return in 1988, seemingly a long time ago, yet in a galaxy not so far away. It's since earned its reputation as a genuine classic; the two-CD magnum opus is one of the most important, widely known and highly respected releases in Steve Roach's vast body of work. Emergent from Roach's travels in the Australian outback, along with studies of the Aboriginal dreamtime, and his desert walkabouts in California, all such influences were the key threshers of this recording, which even today sounds like a transmission from both the near future and the very distant past. A fortnight's worth of tracks hear Roach hankering after a rhythmick, spatio-temporal everywhen, musing on suspended time and desert wanderings through scape-spanning chords and boundlessly exponential decays via a distinctly 80s drum bank. He takes only a few relatively muted, percussive and turbid detours on redoubts like 'Songline' and 'Red Twilight With The Old Ones'.