The world could be a pretty good place today if people in the eighties had only been more likely to get the music of Steve »Never call it New Age« Roach. Back then, after inhaling the records of Schulze, Göttsching and Tangerine Dream, the American barricaded himself in a log cabin on the outskirts of San Diego to compose an ode to nature. Water splashes, birdsong and the rustling of leaves in the wind were supposed to sweep half-hour trips to synthesizer deserts where coyotes howl at night and the sun bangs down during the day, but occasional downpours bring life to the pampas and thus kitschily keep everything in balance. So it’s no wonder that »Quiet Music 1-3« was well received by the, well, New Age community – the sun does not only greet the Californian coast with the word »ambient« in the Roach sense. The thing was already running up and down on Eso-Happenings when burnt-out content creators were not yet desperately clicking through relaxing playlists on YouTube to puke their messed-up life story into the comments. After all, the stuff feels like three days of dopamine fasting on some remote mountain farm in the South Tyrolean Dolomites. The fact that since the cassette release in 1986 not a single label has shown any sympathy for releasing a vinyl version of »Quiet Music« almost borders on blasphemy. Telephone Explosion, which has already pressed records of Steve Roach classics like »Structures From Silence« and »Dreamtime Return«, closes the gap. And this is not only a good thing in terms of nature.
Quiet Music 1
