A budget-priced reissue of this out-of-print 2006 collaborative album from Steve Roach and Loren Nerell is being released on Projekt records, but is available now at steveroach.com, along with a few copies of the original limited edition.
Vivid ecosystems of sound abound on this field recording of the
mind. Drones, liquid resonances and soothing walls of sound wash over
the listener. This abstract sound painting includes hints of crickets,
sounds vaguely suggestive of water, and deep otherworldly echoes. There
is no melody, no rhythm; the feeling is cool, relaxed, and yet in the
darkness there is warmth as well. The worlds Nerell and Roach have
built do not exist on any map; their impact goes well beyond what can
merely be perceived with one's ears.
Tokafi.com: "For Terraform,
they have opted for building a galaxy from scratch. The result is a
place of incredible lushness, borderless vastitude, sudden atmospheric
swings, wordless spirituality and many different colors turning in slow
motion like shimmering grains of sand inside an infinite kaleidoscope.
For most of their duration, these pieces do not want to "go" anywhere,
they just "are", existing and breathing in all of the detailed richness
of a physical landscape, allowing the gaze of the listener to stray and
inspect its structures from the purple-tinged horizon to the dense
brushwoods of its rainforest and the lifelines of its lush and moist
green leaves. There is a sound of crickets running through almost all
tracks like a beacon, assuring the wanderer of the safety of his
trajectory by its presence and warning him inside the cavernous
wastelands of its absence. Of course, all of these animal allusions,
all of the noises, all of the swelling and congesting pads and liquid
resonances are all highly artificial – once you start observing their
characteristics in an intellectual fashion, there is not the slightest
doubt that this is not a field recording, but in fact a collage of
synthesized harmonies and effects."
THE BACK STORY
Loren Nerell and Steve Roach met in Los Angeles in 1981 in the early
days of the electronic music scene. It was a time when like-minded
musicians who understood the importance of emerging technology were
coming together in local clubs and performance venues to share what
they knew and learn from one another. After years of friendship and
occasional musical collaboration, in 2006 the two decided to convene in
a relaxed setting to see what they could distill from a blending of
their collective talents and individual styles.
The two composers are both experienced in using the world around them as inspiration for their art; Nerell taped his Indonesian Soundscapes in 1999 and Roach, of course, has travelled the deserted rockscapes of Australia to come up with Dreamtime Return,
an album now considered a milestone and a classic. In both cases,
though, what you heard wasn't a 1:1 conversion of their journeys, but
the aural representation of a multisensory experience.
Terraform
emerged from their mutual desire to create an organic, surreal and
deeply ambient environment of langorous humid soundscapes. Through a
labyrinth of studio techniques, a kind of audio terraforming was
developed. Heavily textured and mood altering, the long uninterrupted
flow seemingly slows time down by way of the surreal dark ambient
soundforms found in much of Roach's work. Nerell brings the steamy,
evanescent blend of his mutated Indonesian sources, a signature sound
that defines his previous releases for Amplexus, Side Effects and
Soleilmoon.
Loren Nerell has studied gamelan music for the
last twenty-five years, expanding and fine-tuning his mastery of
Indonesia's unique indigenous musical traditions through performances
and field work. During this time he has accumulated a large number of
field recordings, many of which he uses in his compositions. This has
evolved from simply using the material as-is to an elaborate processing
technique in which the material is taken to a point so far from its
original source as to be unrecognizable.
Impressions from several listeners have referenced Brian Eno's seminal On Land recording.
The out-of-print limited edition comes in a DVD-sized Digipak with 3 postcards inside. Regular edition comes in a jewel case. You can order your copy here:
Steve Roach: Terraform