Articles
Adrian Lane
Asaf Sirkis
Zen Land

Albums
Aerosol
A Guide For Reason
Bang On A Can All-Stars
Hafdís Bjarnadóttir
David Chesky
Alex Cobb
Container
Max Corbacho
Crisopa
DJ Cam
Döring & Korabiewski
Emißatett
Benjamin Finger
Fink
Fjordne
Gore Tech
Rachel Grimes
Hollan Holmes
Hosomi & Hatakeyama
Human Suits
Ayn Inserto
Terje Isungset
Adrian Lane
Valentina Lisitsa
Branford Marsalis Quartet
Multicast Dynamics
Naph
Networks
O'Donnell with Kent
Yui Onodera
Onodera & Bondarenko
Paniyolo
Petrels
Prefuse 73
Steve Roach
Rothenberg and Erel
R. Schwarz
Shiggajon
Stetson and Neufeld
Satoshi Tomiie
Gareth Whitehead
Zen Land

Compilations / Mixes
Francesco Tristano

EPs / Cassettes / DVDs / Mini-Albums / Singles
Four Hands
Heights & Worship
My Home, Sinking
Neveready
Prefuse 73
RSD

Steve Roach: Skeleton Keys
Projekt Records

One way electronic pioneer Steve Roach vitalizes his music is by not not only anticipating the future but by looking backwards, too. In the case of Skeleton Keys, he returned to his analog modular sequencer-based roots by recording all eight of the album's long-form tracks using a large-format analog-modular synthesizer/sequencer-based system (a photo on the inner sleeve shows Roach standing in front of the large apparatus with its many rows and columns of cables, switches, and knobs).

Representative of the recording's general style, “The Only Way In” inaugurates Skeleton Keys with shimmering swaths of twinkling synthesizers, dense tapestries whose individual elements pulsate, spiral, and weave at varying pitches. Like the Mobius Strip-like design intimated by its title, “Escher's Dream is Dreaming” features sequencer patterns that literally feel as if they're looping in on themselves. One occasionally hears in such material echoes of ‘70s artists like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. There are moments during “The Function Inside the Form,” for instance, where the former's influence is strongly evident, but it's hardly the only piece where the presence of such precursors looms.

Roach's music naturally has evolved throughout his multi-decade career; in recent years, it's developed into something one might call tribal-techno, an hypnotic form of music where synthesizer patterns serenely drift on delicate beds of percussion, and certain tracks on the album do, in fact, gravitate in the style's direction, among them “It's All Connected” and “Saturday Somewhere.” A number of these retro-futuristic settings unfold at a surprisingly fast clip. Though slow-motion washes might exhale in the background of “Outer Weave,” their glacial movement is offset by rapid percussive pitter-patter that powers the twanging cut at a breakneck pace. Once its kinetic rhythms lock into position, the prototypical Roach setting unfolds with a mathematical precision.

June 2015