BLOODMOON RISING

On with his seemingly endless creative energy that has possessed Steve Roach this year, he goes back in time, "music composition wise" and renders a moving and astounding listening depiction to this astronomical event, which we know as "Blood Mooon".

Having had happened two nights ago, Steve Roach recorded and released almost simultaneously this project in able to be kept in the recent events collective memory.

Here are Steve Roach's written words about this release:

"This piece was created in these last few days leading up to the Blood Moon night of October 8th. So much of my work is born from the deep end of the night immersion. Staying aware of the moons many phases, from full to new has always been a part of my creative undercurrent so the opportunity to acknowledge this moment in time made this piece flow forth with out a question. Tuning into this Blood Moon feeling mixed with that sense of the seasons change in the air right now is inside this piece for me, and now I quietly offer it up to the moon and to you in this more spontaneous way only through Bandcamp. All my best Steve .- Evening of Oct 7."

A memorable, slow paced, ritual like depiction of this Moon´s uprising and fall. As close as being there could be, and a hypnotic listening experience, which scope is as "red" & "deep" as the art cover that portrays it. Slow paced electronic/acoustic music to delight on, again and again.

****4 "yes, another!" PA stars, project.

Layers of 'high decay' synths are placed on top of one another producing an elongated drone throughout 'Bloodmoon Rising'. As always, his choice of patches are excellent. It would be easy if left in the hands of other ambient artists to make this sound really cheesy and corny.

As it is, there's something quite majestic and other-worldly about this and many of his recent releases. It's beatless, of course, but has a wonderful sense of space. It can be listened to as the soundtrack to the outer Solar System 'Oort Cloud', or as an unbearably hot day in the Atacama desert in Chile.

There's something very organic sounding, despite it being wholly electronic. Perhaps it's because some of the chords are so elongated that they begin to sound like slowed down vocals.

Being one of my favourite sights in the sky, a full blood moon would appear to be something very startling and unsettling indeed if you didn't know the science behind it. This recording sums it up well... It's a calm, beautiful, eerie and somewhat malevolent spectacle that can only be witnessed when the moon is very low in the sky where the earths atmosphere is at its thickest from an observers point of view. It's basically the scattering of sunlight through the earths atmosphere, the same effect that causes sunsets to appear red.

A valid criticism may be that he's released an awful lot of similar albums where you'd be hard pressed to identify the album if you listened to it in random shuffle. But it's just too pretty to give anything less than 4 stars. I do like the direction he's taken during the past few years, dropping the percussion, ritualistic beats, occasional sequencers along with those awfully embarrassing New Age flutes he used to swear by. 'Bloodmoon Rising' will be an ageless recording - looked back on in decades to come where I can easily see it still being relevant and not just 'of it's time'