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TheAdelaidean / Steve Roach — Parallels
(Projekt PRO420, 2024, 2CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-07-28

Parallels Cover art

Perhaps it was inevitable that this collaboration would eventually come to be; Steve Roach, the master ambient composer and synthesist from Baja Arizona with many decades of experience and well over 200 full-length releases, teaming up with the relative newcomer Sean Williams (“theadelaidean”) from Australia, who hasn’t even been composing these kind of sound sculptures for a full ten years yet, though in that timeframe he has managed to record fourteen releases. Their respective styles travel a similar, though not identical, path, and it’s probably evident to anyone familiar with both that Williams’ ideas in music were influenced to a degree by Roach’s work long before he got started. The fact that both artists record on the Projekt label no doubt had some factor in bringing them together for this two-disc collaborative project, even though it probably came together slowly across the 8,500 miles of Pacific Ocean. As one might predict, the result is a dreamy and diffuse soundscape, consisting of ten tracks of various lengths stretched out across the two discs for over two hours of music, with Roach’s contribution sticking to his floating ambient sound (no hand drums, busy sequenced passages, or didgeridoo) and Williams’ contribution staying close to his electronic ambient sound as well, with only the occasional melodic note or two from the piano. The first disc launches with eight minutes of “Finding Focus” before easing into the thirteen-minute drift appropriately titled “Cloud Theatre,” a piece that eases gently through waves of warmth and subtlety before its lengthy fade, rising again to present “Skyline Shards,” the longest piece on the first disc at 21 minutes. In contrast, the second disc begins with four shorter pieces, each in the five-minute range with spatial melodic leanings, including “North Parallel,” “Airspace Vista,” “South Parallel,” and “Horizon Convergence,” and then closes with the expansive 45-plus minute epic “Intersecting Fields,” an immersive and meditative trip down the eternal spiral of sound. A beautiful two hours of floating sound if there ever was one, Parallels is the ticket that will take you there.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Steve Roach, The Adelaidean (Sean Williams)

More info
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/parallels

 

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