Steve Roach ~ USA ~ Tucson, Arizona

Artifacts (1994)

Steve Roach has had an incredibly prolific career, releasing 100's of albums (Discogs lists a total of 257, which is insane). Today, he's essentially doing the Release-Of-The-Month circuit. It wasn't always this rapid, though already by the end of 1994, Roach had an impressive 19 albums under his belt. I've never heard a bad album from Roach, but with such a huge catalog to choose from, I find myself having to be very discerning. An artist can continue to recreate themselves, but they have a brand as it were. That driving muse, which colors an artist's work. No one can escape that because that is what makes them who they are! 

Artifacts catches Roach mixing his two passions. One is of the desert and the native instruments that define the landscape. The other is electronics, almost the polar opposite from a technology perspective. So you get didgeridoos integrating with Korg's, Yamaha's, and Akai's. Artifacts came along in the era of the CD where many artists felt compelled to fill the entire disc. 77 minutes is a lot to absorb for this kind of thing. 

It would be easy to keep them all, but it's not practical. I intend on picking up every single one of Roach's albums that I see in the wilds (this was a thrift shop find). Whether I choose to hear it once or multiple times will be case by case. And if fate puts me and Artifacts back together, I will re-engage. Perhaps I will come to a different conclusion (or not).

1994 Fortuna (CD). Rough paper booklet with philosophical meanderings and recording details.

9/23/26 (review) 
 

Robert Rich / Steve Roach - Strata (1990)

Another thrift shop find. No surprises from two veterans of the ambient scene. Rich brings the percussive elements while Stearns is the master of sleepy electronics. Hit play and doze into dreamland. I can see where cassettes are a good format for this kind of music. Flipping the cassette is the effort needed to get through it all.

1990 Hearts of Space (MC)

9/6/24 (review)

Michael Shrieve / Steve Roach - The Leaving Time (1988)

Picked this one up for a dollar at the Austin Record Show. The sterilized sound from the beginning is a bit off-putting. However it gets more interesting as it goes, and David Torn's guitar is perfect for recordings such as this. Plenty of sequencers as well. Michael Shrieve was on a world tour joining famous synthesists in the 80s apparently. Holding onto this one.

Ownership: 1988 Novus (LP). Acquired in 2023.

8/16/23 (review)   

Empetus (1986)

Arguably this is Steve Roach's definitive Berlin School album before moving on to more ambient realms. There are plenty of inventive sequences that owe some debt to Schmoelling-era Tangerine Dream, but for the most part he retains a completely original sound. Focus is on structure rather than solos. I have way too many Berlin School albums as it is, but this one remains.

Ownership: 1986 Fortuna (CD). Acquired in 2005.

4//05; 9//05; 11/18/20 (review)

Also own: Dreamtime Return; Structures From Silence

Previously owned: Traveler; Now; Soma; Groove Immersion

11/18/20 (new entry)

Ashbury ~ USA ~ Tucson, Arizona

Endless Skies (1983)

Ashbury South were a hard rock band from Oklahoma that relocated to Tucson, Arizona before hitting the studio to release their sole album until modern times. Though released in 1983, the band's appearance, their overall sound, and album cover all look like it's still 1977. Musically Ashbury were all over the map, not atypical of the 70s aesthetic. A3 to A5 demonstrates this. 'Twilight' is a short instrumental acoustic guitar number. This is followed by 'Vengeance' that sounds every bit like Black Sabbath circa Sabotage. 'Madman' is similar to a more rocking America and then breaks into a sharp Outlaws styled guitar jam. 'Hard Fight' starts off the B side with what could pass for one of Kansas' more introspective compositions complete with an excellent guitar solo closer. 'No Mourning' is a very Southern rock instrumental with heavy emphasis on the guitar. It's this latter element that ultimately makes Endless Skies such an endearing album. The title track brings both the dog and the butterfly, with a nice mid-song heavy riff, plus a strong closing. I hear Ashbury as something quintessentially American and of its era. The can-do spirit of the 70s, with musicians putting everything they had into one private recording and hoping for the best. Ultimately Endless Skies was too late for the early 80s hard rock buying audience, one that had moved either to slick MTV styled rock, or embraced more aggressive metal positions. The varied approach Ashbury chose wasn't enough to catch the ears of those that mattered.

Ownership: 2019 High Roller (LP) Green vinyl. Has a lyric insert with a brief band history, plus a giant poster of the cool cover art. Also has an insert with the rather impressive amount of albums the German label High Roller had released up until that time. Acquired in 2025.

6/24/11; 9/11/25 (review)

Ashbury reformed in the 2010's but I haven't heard anything else by the band.

9/11/25 (new entry)

Skinner Box ~ USA ~ Tucson, Arizona

The Playhouse (1990)

Now this title brought back a flood of memories. Not that I ever heard of Skinner Box before. But the style - and the label / backdrop - that's where the memories came in. There was a time roughly between 1992 and 1995 that I had a fondness for the "4AD sound". Now we have terms like Darkwave, Ethereal Wave, Ambient Pop, Dream Pop, and so on. I doubt I could tell you the difference from one to the other. In any case, my favorite band of the style back then - probably like everyone else - was Dead Can Dance. It's a sound I associate my early Colorado living experience with. I even went to a Lisa Gerrard concert in Boulder in 1995. And then... I just stopped. No particular reason really, just went back to my comfort zone of progressive rock. This music and scene was like a different side of me that I had buttoned up and stuck in the attic. Until now.

As for the label, Bobok were part of a larger collective known as Toxic Shock. This was the pre-internet age, and grassroots music labels were sprouting everywhere. To get the message out about what they were issuing, albums often times had newspapers (or flyers) included with detailed descriptions of other releases. I remember when Cuneiform did this, and they were very much similar during these years. These detailed description would often times take a quote from the leading underground DIY magazine of the day: Option. If you were looking for something new to hear - whether it be on cassette or LP (CDs were still considered too expensive for startups), Option was the go-to source. They had no particular genres they specialized in - but just about every underground band from the US found their way to Option. It was how I discovered Black Sun Ensemble for example. 

Black Sun Ensemble ties us back to the origin of Toxic Shock - that is, Tucson, Arizona. This fine southern Arizona town, not too far from the Mexican border, is also the home of the University of Arizona. Universities - in particular back then - were the hot spots for new sounds and styles. While of course there was a lot of repetitiveness, genuine exploratory music was being created. And since social media didn't exist, much of it happened in local silos. This is how something could be the "Seattle Sound" with grunge or the "Tampa Bay Sound" with death metal. It was an exciting time, one that is not likely to be repeated again. As an aside, Toxic Shock also had a brick and mortar store - that I visited in 1994, in the middle of this period.

As for Skinner Box, they perform the style of music in question quite well. The angelic female voices, the percussion and bells, the synthesized sound, flute, and even some psychedelic guitar - all of it transported me back to that time of my life. I wouldn't mind finding other albums like this again. Good times.

Ownership: 1990 Bobok (LP). Has a label newspaper and lyric inner sleeve. 

11/25/20 (review)

11/25/20 (new entry)