music reviews
Friday, February 20, 2009
Steve Roach/Erik Wollo
Stream of Thought
1/13/09
Projekt Records
www.steveroach.com/www.wollo.com
RATING: SEMI-OBNOXIOUS
The sounds found on Stream of Thought wouldn’t be surprising to be heard from a featured release at Digital Ferret or a budget bin compilation of Ambient Sounds for the Office from Target. The album is a collaboration of world-renowned electronic composers Steve Roach and Erik Wollo… essentially the Joe Satriani and Steve Vai of the Goth/Industrial world. The piece is presented as “a continuous stream of sonic consciousness in 19 parts,” which plays as a single, meticulously layered, soundscape. The work is, however, divided into 19 individual tracks, ranging from 37 seconds to 14 minutes and 17 seconds, for little apparent reason. At times Industrial-inspired musicality evokes intriguingly dark and paranoid imagery, although more often synthetic orchestrations of the reverberation of water provide what could be the soundtrack to an IMAX movie. The fact that the album was released by Sam Rosenthal’s Projekt Records would lead anyone with a good sense of music history to believe that there is probably actually something quite genius going on here, however, it’s doubtful that many will get whatever that is anytime soon. So it’s fairly safe to say that, unless you’re an editor at Sonic Immersion or Electroambient Space, Stream of Thought will come off sounding fairly lame and wussy. Izzy Cihak
Stream of Thought
1/13/09
Projekt Records
www.steveroach.com/www.wollo.com
RATING: SEMI-OBNOXIOUS
The sounds found on Stream of Thought wouldn’t be surprising to be heard from a featured release at Digital Ferret or a budget bin compilation of Ambient Sounds for the Office from Target. The album is a collaboration of world-renowned electronic composers Steve Roach and Erik Wollo… essentially the Joe Satriani and Steve Vai of the Goth/Industrial world. The piece is presented as “a continuous stream of sonic consciousness in 19 parts,” which plays as a single, meticulously layered, soundscape. The work is, however, divided into 19 individual tracks, ranging from 37 seconds to 14 minutes and 17 seconds, for little apparent reason. At times Industrial-inspired musicality evokes intriguingly dark and paranoid imagery, although more often synthetic orchestrations of the reverberation of water provide what could be the soundtrack to an IMAX movie. The fact that the album was released by Sam Rosenthal’s Projekt Records would lead anyone with a good sense of music history to believe that there is probably actually something quite genius going on here, however, it’s doubtful that many will get whatever that is anytime soon. So it’s fairly safe to say that, unless you’re an editor at Sonic Immersion or Electroambient Space, Stream of Thought will come off sounding fairly lame and wussy. Izzy Cihak
Labels: Music Reviews
posted by Izzy Cihak at
4:08 AM
1 Comments:
What? Huh? this album has NOTHING to do with the goth/industrial world...... It's an electronic/ambient album. Thanks for the kind words about me and Projekt, but I think you were listening for something different then what Steve + Erik set out to create.... Sam
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home