Back catalogue: Modern Classical

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'.