Quiet Music

by Jim BrenholtsSteve Roach created four albums devoted to quiet and silence early in his solo career. The first release was Structures From Silence in 1984. (He has since remastered and reissued it.) He recorded a series, Quiet Music, from 1983 through 1986. Quiet Music, Vol. 1 is the first cassette and it is beautiful, serene music. Roach surrounds nature samples with very melodic, almost symphonic synth atmospheres and bright drones. This is pastoral ambience at its finest. While Roach has gone a different direction in the late '90s and the new millennium, this is still treasured music. Careful listeners will hear the distant echoes of this style in his tribal ambience. Many artists have followed Roach, but few have caught up to him.