by Phyllis Pollack, Valley Scene (San Fernando Valley, California)
September 2004
FEVER DREAMS is close to 74 minutes of meditative, ambient, multi-layered percussion and bass, wherein each line flaunts its own distinct rhythm, cascading over dreamy, provocative landscapes of tricked-out, penetrating keyboards. The musical journey allures and compels the listener to have an audio experience that is anything but passive.
This is Roach's 54th album, and as always, he manages to enter new auditory frontiers. The bass lines from Patrick O'Hearn, met with Byron Metcalf's commanding percussion, become subliminal, hypnotic, danceable grooves, layered over a carpet of magical keyboards on "Wicked Dreams."
"Fever Pulse" is the second opus on the album, wherein primal meets prescient.
"Tantra Mantra" enters another dimension, with its fancy footwork of layered, up-tempo rhythms, and other-worldy, elusive melody, where sound transcends, evolves and dissolves into harmonic blends of flowing rhythm. Keyboards pierce through a wall of soft rhythmic pulsation in this track, which lasts almost 30 minutes. Cascading rhythms percolate over a series of eclectic, tunneling tonalities, creating an effect that is relaxing, while still energizing, because of the pace of bass and drums.
"Moved Beyond", a relentless and staggering composition, is the final track, and perhaps the best of this album. Sonically mind altering, seductive, and calming, the composition is a musical Valium, a rhythmic sort of Mandrake.
Steve Roach makes music that is an innovative, healing piece of art.
 |
Steve Roach 2004 Projekt PRO154 (CD) Reviewed by All Music Guide, amazon.com, amazon.com, Ambient Musings, Ambient Review, Ambient Visions, Ambient Visions, CD Services (UK), Electroambient Space, Electronic Shadows, Hypnagogue, Morpheus Music, Ping Things, Sonic Curiosity, Tokafi, Tokafi, Valley Scene (San Fernando Valley, California), Wind and Wire Within the opening moments of FEVER DREAMS' first track, "Wicked Dream" featuring Patrick O'Hearn on bass, it is clear that a new chapter is opening on Steve Roach's long and winding pursuit of potent soundworlds far off the traveled path. The music's foundation is built upon long mid-tempo hybrid grooves with strong bass elements created from a combination of acoustic and electronic means. Steve Roach's atmospheric and loop-spun melodic guitar textures rise and fall, intermix with his synth and computer alchemy to create an aura of complex emotional import. The overall feeling of FEVER DREAMS is one shrouded in an exotic amber-colored light filtering through an overgrown mental landscape of last night's lingering FEVER DREAMS; the sensual atmosphere is especially present on the 30 minute track "Tantra Mantra" featuring percussionist Byron Metcalf. This release of floating, hypnotic groove meditations sets the course on a new direction presented over the three interconnected "Fever releases" planned throughout 2004.
With Patrick O'Hearn (bass), Byron Metcalf (percussion). |