Steve Roach & Robert Rich >> Touch that space

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #60:

Steve Roach & Robert Rich - "Touch"

(Hearts Of Space Records, 1992)

Two of the main dudes of '80s ambient music got together for a crazy party, threw all the rules of ambient music out the window, let it all hang out, etc., and this is what we got.  Well, they didn't really throw all the rules out the window, and there was probably no throwing involved... maybe some tea, some fondue, and some Trivial Pursuit.  In any case, this track, the last one on the album, is particularly weightless and beautiful, so distant and ephemeral that it's barely even there.  I love the delicate guitar plucking.  The other tracks on it are more in a tribal, New Age-y (read: yoga-friendly) vein.

I bought this CD, Soma, several years ago but have only listened to it twice.  I found out on Wikipedia that while Rich was a kid growing up in the desert, he was a big fan of cacti and succulents, just like I am today.  The title of this post is the name of a tremendous rock song by Magic Dirt, which I found in about a nanosecond by simply typing "touch" into my iTunes' search field, and as soon as I saw said song title pop up, I smiled, knowing that Fortuna's wheel had spun my way.  I will be posting that song someday.

Speaking of touching space, this Mark Sanchez flinch has been cracking me up for three weeks straight:

Planets with similar climates: Biosphere - "Poa Alpina" (1997), Tangerine Dream - "Sequent C'" (1973), Brian Eno - "1/2" (1978).

Steve Roach >> Building something out of nothing

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #49:

Steve Roach - "Structures From Silence"

(Fortuna Records, 1984 / Projekt Records, 2001)

I will probably replace this with a shorter edited version in the future, or make it just streaming, but for now, here's the entire 28-minute monster.  (Note: This mp3 is from the original 1984 Fortuna CD, not the remastered 2001 Projekt CD.  The latter has a terrible alternate cover.)  Most ambient composers try to get the warmest, most liquid-y, analog sound possible; this track stands out because you can hear its unpolished digital veneer, giving it that intangible retro-futuristic feel that so many bands of today spend all day using ProTools striving for.

I got this CD a mere two years ago at a thrift store; coincidentally, the one to which I gave that cherry laurel tree a few days ago.  The first two pieces on it are decent, but this track blew me away right from the opening seconds, and always will.  You can download a free sampler medley of all three tracks here.  In October 2002, some magazine called New Age Voice named Structures From Silence the #4 most influential ambient album ever, with Roach's own Dreamtime Return occupying the #2 slot.  Brian Eno's Ambient #1: Music For Airports was a no-brainer pick at #1.  In December 2000, Yoga Journal voted it one of the top 10 albums to blast while doing... that.  AllMusic Guide gives it 5 stars.  You get the picture.

In '84, Roach said "For several months before actually committing the title track 'Structures From Silence' to tape, I would live with the music throughout my daily activities. Often I would sleep and wake with the music playing. (Since it is stored in the computer memory, it can play indefinitely.) This gave me the opportunity to fine tune the piece to a very sublime level. At the time I did not listen to any other music. I also spent much time in silence, a beautiful place. Feeling the music move through that space was vital in its development... For me the essence of this music is what is felt when it ends, a returning to the silence."
In late '94 & early '95, I sold all my CDs and tapes (I didn't buy my first vinyl, Soundgarden's Screaming Life 12" and Nirvana's Sliver 7", until the end of '95) and made myself drive around without listening to the car radio.  It seemed like this helped to get my sense of hearing reattuned and made me more in touch with some timeless force.  So I kind of know what Steve-o is talking about.  I was only 18 at the time, but I felt like I had to press the Reset button in my head.

"Structures From Silence" was used to score Roach's 1987 VHS tape of the same name, which I am dying to see:

In 1989, Roach put out another home video (on VHS & Laserdisc), called Earth Dreaming.  I have it on Laserdisc, but have no LD player, so I've watched the whole thing on YouTube.  It's SR's music combined with imagery by someone named Georgianne Cowan.  Wondrous desert scenes are the main focus, but GC interspersed female forms into it in several places.  The first third of it doesn't have much in terms of ladies, so check out the second part:

Now that's art in its purest form.  Kinda makes your little Strokes and Wu-Tang albums seem puny by comparison, no?

I've been thinking for a few years about joining Yelp, but have recently learned that's pretty much a scam which extorts $ from businesses in exchange for suppressing / deleting negative reviews.  An informative article can be read here.  I mainly wanted to join it to rate plant nurseries, record stores, small music venues, and other such things, not fancy restaurants or hotels.  And you can even apparently rate defunct businesses, so it'd be fun to rate the Mermaid Lounge, McLendon's Nursery, Metropolis Records, Sharkey's Reef, Racketeer's, etc., so we'll see.

I photographed this cool painting during Prospect.1 at one of the venues on St. Claude Ave.:

Francesca "Frahn" Koerner - Into The Vortex (2008, 62 x 46")

It was selling for $8,000, which I thought was odd for one of the art meccas of town that's more DIY / "punk" than the establishment Julia Street galleries in the CBD, but I guess $8,000 is pretty cheap for a big painting by someone who could be famous someday...

I watched the 2007 pilot episode of The Big Bang Theory today and I think I'm gonna be hooked on it.

Planets with similar climates: Seefeel - "Signals" (1993), Windy & Carl - "Antarctica" (1996), Aphex Twin - "#19" (1994).