by Sylvain Lupari, Guts Of Darkness
August 2009
A fine musical shower mutes in a strange tribal droning on the opening of NADA TERMA. The second musical project of Arizonians Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf, with German Mark Seelig, is a long introspective musical journey. A hypnotic journey, where Roach's drones are smothered among Seelig's ancestral aboriginal instruments. The first three movements are of a peace of mind from a fanciful desert to sonorous sound incantations which blow as the warm winds of Arizona aridities as any terrestrial deserts. A musical fluid which floods our internal creativity and made us travel, on camelback, towards the spiritual dunes of a whimsical desert. A soft atonal but musical movement livens up with Metcalf's beautiful percussion on the fourth part, which modify the spiritual idleness towards a more dandling movement. Captivating, the rhythm sets ablaze the musical fluidity which grows rich on Dilruba strings and Roach's threatening droning. Slowly, the movement embraces a strange lascivious dance by which the cadence increases appreciably under Roach's ceaseless reverberations. Resonances which give way to fluty breaths at the sixth part opens, returning NADA TERMA to territories even more subjecting where flutes and percussion takes on a hypnotic incantatory harmony. The movement becomes heavier and percussion more incisive, cutting with the cyclic curvatures of the reverberations. The seventh part pursues these exotic dances of the senses where Roach's drones blow as desert winds rob the mountain of relief, returning NADA TERMA's conclusion to its point of origin.
NADA TERMA is beautiful music for those who like travelling with their dreams. Wandering without moving to the quest of a spiritual introspection, appropriate for its own perception. Excellent music for meditating, although from part four the rhythm is more animated. This by no means prevents the search for its Mantra, for those who believe in it.
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Steve Roach, Byron Metcalf, Mark Seelig 2008 Projekt PRO222 (CD) Reviewed by e/i magazine, Electroambient Space, Guts Of Darkness, Musique Machine, Sonic Curiosity NADA TERMA merges the boundaries of ambient, world music and sacred-meditative styles. On NADA TERMA (translated as "discovering spiritual treasures through the world of sound") East Indian tonalities blend with Sufi-like trance percussion immersed in atmospheres, drifts and drones, arriving at a state of relaxed, focused awareness. The continuously-woven 73-minute piece is sequenced into seven discrete segments, perfect for any listener looking for extended states of awareness, creative enhancement, yoga, bodywork, and deep listening.
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