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Reviews

Steve Roach — Molecules of Motion
(Projekt 353, 2018, CD)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2018-06-08

Molecules of Motion Cover art

With such a perfect and descriptive title for the music at hand, Roach’s Molecules of Motion features four long tracks of flowing emotional energy, at once sharing both his Berlin school sequenced roots and his more evolutionary floating ambient style, each occupying several different levels in each of the pieces. Motion is the key, everything is moving at varying speeds and in alternating orbits, shifting and evolving slowly as it goes. The atmospheres behind it all are lush, powerful and lucid, growing and changing at a slower pace than the busy shimmering sequences, but all work together to create a seamless fabric of meditative currents that one can easily get lost within. The colorful and pulsing sequences appear out in fromt of the slower motions, then conversely hide behind them, occasionally doing a deep dive, changing keys and hues, all making for a magical show of lights, colors, points and fragments all flowing together effortlessly. The title track opens, running for almost 25 minutes, though at around the 20 minute mark the busy pulses that led the piece up to that point begin to diminish while a more floating sensibility takes over and paves the way for the seamless transition into “Grace Meditation,” nearly as long as the first but more focused on the slower moving atmospherics that still host a vast universe of complex pulsations but in a differently focused way than the opener, sending the flows of imagination moving in a different direction. As the listener wanders deeper into the bubbling cavernous labyrinth, the depth become more pronounced and the feeling more gently serene, all the parts of the mystical lattice are flowing inward, with a slow and subtle fade to black lasting over several minutes. “Phase Reverie” emerges out of the total darkness in the wake of the previous track, yet another interesting blend of multi-dimensional bubbling sequences cast in a vast ever-changing multi-layered textural fabric of energized warmth and elastic coolness. The closer “Empath Current” is preceeded by another fade-to-black moment, followed perhaps the busiest and most energized sequence patterns of the entire program, though the warm sheets of glowing and colorful warmth are never far away. Overall, Molecules of Motion makes brilliant use of inherent contrasts between fast and slow moving sonic energy that a listener can become completely lost within.

Filed under: New releases, 2018 releases

Related artist(s): Steve Roach

More info
http://steveroach.bandcamp.com/album/molecules-of-motion

 

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