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Steve Roach / vidnaObmana — Circles & Artifacts (2025 Remaster)
(Projekt no#, 2013, DL)

Steve Roach / Vidna Obmana — The Live Story
(Bandcamp no#, 2020/2025, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-07-28

Circles & Artifacts (2025 Remaster) Cover artThe Live Story Cover art

While Steve Roach and Dirk Serries (a.k.a. VidnaObmana) have been individually been plying their respective crafts for many decades, their paths first converged in the mid-90s with the release of their first collaboration Well of Souls. With that as a starting point, the two continued to release material together for another ten years, one every year to two during that period. Both artists inhabit a similar soundspace, sculpting their musical creations in a floating ambient style informed by pure electronics and tribal sounds, although the way they arrive here are by two very different methods: Roach, with a history of working with modular (and other) synthesizers, hand drums, flutes, and didgeridoo; and Serries, whose primary sound sources would be flute, bells, percussion, guitar, and voices, all processed through a whole lot of effects and loops. The resulting collaborations are at once mystical and mesmerizing, calming yet energetic.

Circles & Artifacts was Roach and Obmana’s fourth studio release together from 2000, following the three-disc set Ascension of Shadows one year earlier. Projekt has released this remastered (by Dirk Serries) version in 2025, a powerful epic-length piece just over an hour long of low level immersive music for meditation; it’s a piece that drifts along with the listener in active minimalism, slowly evolving as it proceeds, engaging the imagination with beauty and shimmer, occasionally approaching levels that are so low that a listener can barely hear without paying very close attention, but all coming back in a different shape and form for the next cycle. This is the kind of elaborate sound sculpture that’s meant to be experienced using high quality headphones that can pull out every detail — as well as mask all of the distractive sounds that can destroy that engrossment. This was a great piece 25 years ago, though it’s even better now — one can hear things that were nearly inaudible in its original release.

Just one month or so after the Circles and Artifacts remaster, we have the release of The Live Story (Portland – Italy – Milwaukee – Netherlands), four complete live shows recorded between 1997 and 2000, a massive seven-and-a-half hour compilation of live material. Yes, you read that correctly!  Seven and a half hours that might take the better part of a week of evenings to go through, but definitely worth it. The first concert presented is from November 9th, 2000 at The Old Church in Portland, Oregon, a show that would correspond to the Circles & Artifacts period, but it couldn’t be more different. Everything the duo creates is composed in real time with whatever instrumentation they have on hand at the time. In their respective studios in Arizona and Belgium, they have everything at their disposal, whereas in a live setting they are limited to what instruments they have on hand, and that night in Portland, hand drums, shakers, and other percussion instruments were a major part of the equation, as well as voices, the feeling is very tribal. None of the tracks have titles (simply “Portland 1,” “Portland 2” etc.) and that applies to all of the live shows in this set, and to be fair, each of the shows are pretty much a long live continuum, without any gaps. Next, we cross the Atlantic and go back in time a couple years to July 26, 1997 to Verucchio, Italy for their performance at the Verucchio festival, then a few days later for a show at Shank Hall in Milwaukee on July 30th, while the final show presented here was recorded November 1st, 1997 at Theater 3-in-1 in Huizen, The Netherlands. These final three shows in the set were all from a six-month period in ‘97 corresponding to the Cavern of Sirens period, but don’t go there for any hints as to what this sounds like — remember what I said about studio vs live and composing material in real time on the spot. Some of this material was released in the Spirit Dome – Live Archive (parts of the Verucchio festival and Shank Hall shows) by Projekt back in 2009, from an earlier release on Groove Unlimited in 2000, and the Portland show was previously released as Live in Portland 11 09 2000 in 2023. In conclusion, it’s all excellent and different from what one might expect, but it’s a lot of listening, better taken in one show at a time.

Filed under: New releases, 2013 releases, 2025 releases, 2020 recordings

Related artist(s): Steve Roach, Dirk Serries / Vidna Obmana / Fear Falls Burning

More info
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/circles-artifacts-2025-remaster
http://vidnaobmana.bandcamp.com/album/the-live-story

 

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