Steve Roach - The courier of ambient music

It seemed unbelievable even to me when Steve Roach's Skype account finally came online and the long-awaited call could go through. Tracking down the Californian musician was, all things considered, a brief chase, if a rather bumpy one, but in the end the good hour spent talking with him flew by, taking the shape of a conversation between enthusiasts about analog synthesizers, ways of putting technology to use, and the future of sound generation. Plenty of insights and curiosities to better understand the vast body of work of the undisputed sovereign of contemporary ambient music.

You started out as a musician in the electro-minimal field, with albums like “Now” and “Traveler”. But then, starting with “Structures From Silence”, you literally turned the page and began writing a kind of book of the new ambient music, with each of your records as a chapter. How did this shift come about?

Well, my very earliest work is quite clearly inspired by the electronic music of the 1970s, in particular the Berlin cosmic school, which was really my first point of departure. Those are minimalist works in terms of structure, but “Moebius”, for instance, is already a tribute to those sounds right from its title. Then I started to evolve my style in a different direction, because many of my sources of inspiration changed: I gradually left those sounds behind and began looking for inspiration in the environment around me instead, and that's what has been reflected in my music from “Structures From Silence” onward.

Since the 2000s, you've considerably increased your output, putting out as many as 3-4 albums a year. What's behind this prolificacy? Where and when do you find the elements that inspire you today?

Yes, that's true, I think it's mainly down to simply getting older. As time has gone by, I've built up more experience in knowing how to turn what's around me into music, which is still what I do today. My music always draws on the particular situations I live through every day — any single moment can be a source of inspiration in itself. Every situation has its own particular quality, and it can be translated into music. I keep drawing inspiration from countless elements: first and foremost, the environment I live in, and it's no coincidence that many of my records with a similar sound share the trait of having been conceived in different places. I was born and lived for a long time in California, while today I live in Arizona, but wherever I go I always try to find something particular to capture. Even during my many trips to Australia and Europe (especially Italy) I've found all kinds of sources of inspiration: Rome is a wonderful city, for instance. The desert has always been another image capable of conveying a great deal. The studio itself is a source of inspiration: walking in there, finding yourself surrounded by these instruments that let you reproduce what you feel in a different language, one that's perhaps far more effective than words. Take an album like “Sigh Of Ages”: it's a whirlwind of emotions felt in situations that are quite different from one another and apparently “normal”. I think it's always worth seizing every moment, every small gesture that in everyday life might seem useless or irrelevant — it can conceal something that music is able to bring back to life.

One of the biggest distinctive traits of your music is the sound. How do you get the sounds you use in your tracks, and more generally, how does one of your pieces develop from composition to performance?

I get the sounds simply by trying to reproduce as faithfully as possible the idea I have in mind; when I step into the studio I literally lose myself among whatever gear is at my disposal. The development of a piece is exactly that: a personal, particular process. I'd love to give lessons explaining my approach, but you'll understand that it's essentially impossible to describe in words. It's definitely human, very human — so much so that personally I can't fathom how so many people today compose and perform music relying exclusively on laptops: in my music there's a physicality, a need to communicate, a humanity that a laptop could never translate. It's like a painter giving up the brush to pick up a mouse — that's not for me. I still use synthesizers, especially rack-mounted modules, which are more convenient and take up less space. For a long time I used the Arp 2600, which in my opinion remains the best synthesizer ever invented, and the EMS VCS3, while I always steered clear of the Moog Modular because it's decidedly bulky. When I go into the studio, I sink into a dimension all my own, and I can spend hours chasing a single sound until it faithfully reproduces what I'm after. Then, as I said before, I try to seize inspiration at every moment: within a few hours I might go from working on something tribal and percussive to something relaxed and laid-back. In the same way, I sometimes go to sleep right after leaving the studio and carry the memory of what I was working on into a dream overnight. Then I get up in the morning and throw myself back into the studio to update everything, or carry on with the work.

If I understood correctly, then, you're not a huge fan of digital. How do you view the fact that many young musicians today approach an art form like yours using only these tools and the digital age? Do you see it as a loss that fewer and fewer musicians are tied to "real" instruments?

If you like, it's a curious and bizarre trend, in some ways incomprehensible from my point of view, but one that objectively reflects exactly how the world is evolving. We're increasingly inclined to "simplify", even at the cost of sacrificing that human element that's always instilled into work through passion. Nowadays more or less anyone can turn on a laptop and make their own music, maybe even really good music: you just open any sequencer and there you have the equivalent of what you (and I too) call "real" instruments. I understand that young musicians of our time were born and raised in a world where using a laptop is the norm, and maybe they look at us "old-timers" who remain attached to our old contraptions with a mix of admiration and bewilderment. Then, in my view, it's also a purely technical matter: I don't think I'd ever be able to get out of a computer what I get out of my synthesizers, or my digeridoo, or my percussion. There'd be one intermediary too many: the software. I do use laptops during performances and in the studio, but in a way that's less invasive, making them essentially the archive of what I pull out with my own hands through hardware. The range of nuance and the ability to instill interpretation that you get with "real" instruments is largely lost with a laptop, despite a sonic perfection that's often more formal than substantial. That doesn't change the fact that this is, in all likelihood, the future: it's the direction music is moving in — just not mine.

It should be said, though, that perhaps there's a specific problem: many young musicians start out with a limited budget, and that keeps them from buying hardware gear!

Well, by hardware gear I don't mean a Big Moog, but even just a few rack-mounted modules. I don't think overall they end up costing much more than an original, licensed copy of a good program. Not to mention the cost of expansions. And anyway, I myself no longer use entirely analog instruments these days, but I still see a prevalence of hardware over software, or at least a tight dependence of the latter on the former. Software can be my sonic bank, the palette I draw color from: but the brush is, and must remain, in my hands, and that necessarily requires hardware. I want the freedom to put my fingers on whichever keys I prefer, to hold a note for as long as I need. My music and my approach are very "free", based on the impression of the moment, on what I feel like doing at a given instant, not on calculations or rigid cycles repeated over and over. Nowadays synth manufacturers still offer various kinds of instruments that act as a middle ground — the Roland Gaia series comes to mind: the build of old analog synths with digital sound. Connect it via MIDI to a computer, and you have all the sounds you want along with the ability to manipulate them however you like, without having to give instructions to a third party (the software, ed.).

I've always found your live shows incredibly fascinating. "Journey Of One" is perhaps one of your best records and an absolute masterpiece of ambient music. What difference do you find between presenting your music live and your meticulous studio work?

Thank you very much, I'm glad you think so. Fundamentally the difference isn't that stark: obviously they're two different things, but connected to one another. For me the studio is a laboratory where I give free rein to my passion, developing my music and often pursuing several ideas at once. As I told you, it can happen that within two hours I go from trance and percussion to sprawling, spacious ambient music. It's a place where I clearly feel free, maybe even more so than live: I can correct myself, revisit passages, change them, let myself be guided by impressions, even repeating the same passage over and over with different approaches and nuances. The live dimension, on the other hand, is the external experience: it's a kind of "holiday" for my music away from the studio, and having to play in front of an audience is decisive in shaping the approach to performance. Most of my concerts are genuine journeys, broadly planned but ultimately based on the inspiration of the moment, on feelings, on the audience's reaction. Sure, I'm not as free as I am in the studio, but on the other hand I'm freer to make mistakes than I am in the studio. The process that leads to recording an album involves listening back again and again, and that's how imperfections to fix and passages to improve surface, maybe even a flash of insight that makes you change your mind about something you were previously sure of. Live, obviously, none of that exists: you have to seize the moment. Unfortunately it's very difficult for me to play concerts outside of America, because I bring my instruments with me even onstage: in fact, it's precisely live that I can't understand those who show up with two laptops and use only those. I arrive with keyboards and racks; I use computers at most to sample excerpts from some of my records, which I normally intersperse with unreleased or improvised sections. I would come to Italy too, and it's actually a bet with myself that I'll definitely win: the problem remains moving all my instruments, paying for transport, running the risk they'll break or get stolen, finding decent insurance and paying for that too. In short, it's quite a challenge, but one I plan to win soon.

You've also composed many other wonderful albums alongside some of your "contemporaries": Michael Stearns, Robert Rich, Erik Wøllo, Loren Nerell… How do you view the practice of collaborating in music? What have you taken from these and other musicians you've worked with, and what have they taken from you?

Very interesting question, and one that's a bit hard to answer... All the collaborations I've had in my career have always started, without exception, from mutual admiration for each other's music. I think that's fundamentally the first step toward an artistic relationship. Then there's one thing all my collaborations have in common: they all happened in the same place, my studio. I would never, ever agree to make a record with a "colleague" by sending audio files back and forth remotely — there has to be a human connection and an exchange, and that can only happen in the studio. I've certainly taken a lot from the musicians I've worked with: take Byron Metcalf, for example, with whom I'm currently composing a new work: he's very different from me, we first met in 2000, and it was he who later inspired the use of percussion on several subsequent albums. The same thing happened earlier with Vir Unis. As for how much I've left with them, that's a question you should ask them, but I do believe that every time my path has crossed with other musicians it's been different: every person is like no one but themselves, and so are the results of a collaboration and the way it unfolds.

And which musicians of that kind do you currently consider worthwhile, even in the genre's more recent expressions like drone?

I'll admit it quite honestly, I follow the current scene very little. Not for any particular reason, but because in general I very rarely listen to music that resembles mine. I spend almost half my days in the studio, and when I leave my head is full of my own music, ideas and thoughts about it — I think you can understand that. So I find it extremely difficult to listen to music like mine; it's as if I need to clear my ears of those sounds as soon as I set them aside for a while. I'd rather devote myself to other things, something that isn't part of my style but that I can still appreciate. Speaking of contemporary artists, I can mention Monolake: I became curious about him because of the name — the famous, beautiful lake he's named after is just a few kilometers from where I was born. His music is certainly far from the canonical idea of "drone", but in certain passages it can still be classified as "drone" or "ambient" without losing its modern character. And I always listen to and keep up with the work of my "colleagues" over at Projekt, like Erik Wøllo, Forrest Fang and Loren Nerell. I like following how their music evolves from album to album, and I also draw inspiration from their paths for something of my own.

Finally, what plans do you have for the near future?

A few minutes after we're done talking, I'll be in the studio continuing post-production on a new album with Byron Metcalf, "Tales From The Ultra Tribe", which will come out on Projekt within a couple of months or so. At the same time I'm working on a new ambient-style record with rhythms and sound sequences, in the vein of "Back To Life" and "Mystic Chords & Sacred Spaces". It will once again consist of a single long track, and I think it will see the light of day next spring.

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