STEVE ROACH - KAIROS
1. Soul's Time
2. Core Regeneration
3. Resonation Portal
4. Etheric Planet
5. Lifeforming
6. Biogenesis
7. Womb of Light
8. The Great Return
DVD with visuals & music + CD with the music
DVD bonus: Live montage
Music, direction, production: Steve Roach
Visual Artists: Lynn Augstein, Steve Lazur, Steven Rooke, John Wadsworth, John Vega
preview can be watched or downloaded here:
http://www.steveroach.com/Features/Kairos/
http://www.steveroach.com/Features/Kairos/download.php
An epic release from ambient maestro extraordinaire Steve Roach.
The ever evolving visuals are beautiful and entertaining to watch and combined with the music can have relaxing, entrancing and psychedelic effect. It starts with images of flying over exotic rock formations/canyons, but soon earth is left behind to travel through the realms of space and far beyond (the rest is basicly computer generated). Great stuff.
The music is a mixture of existing and new material from Steve. I hear elements from albums such as Mystic Chords & Sacred Spaces, Possible Planet and Proof Positive. While these albums can get tiresome for their seemingly endless explorations of the same theme(s) (especially if you're not a fan or not familiar with Roach), Kairos combines the coolest elements from these albums into a highly enjoyable mix of deep soundscapes, liquid grooves, beautiful chords and sequences.
My favorite section has got to be Lifeforming. When I played it loud on headphones I started to feel warm and cold at the same time and shake a bit from the pure joy of auditory input. Simply awesome.
This is a high-tech release and the cinematic sound quality is as good as it's gonna get. Steve Roach is a sonic wizard and I doubt if there's any other ambient/synth artist who can match the sheer depth and quality of his sound.
There's no point to the visuals or the music. The point is the experience itself, the journey.
So, if you're a spacehead like me and would like to float away on deep ambient while watching cool imagery, get it now...
Because of its variation this would be an excellent release to start with if you want to check out this great artist. I can also imagine this is interesting material to experience under the influence of certain substances...
Anyway, not exactly an objective review but... 10/10