FM
Biography
Steve Roach (born February 16, 1955, in La Mesa, California, USA) is an American ambient musician and composer. Originally a Motocross racer, at the age of 20, Roach taught himself to play the synthesizer after being inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis. His debut album Now appeared in 1982, followed by Structures from Silence in 1984; in 1988, he released his acclaimed Quiet Music series, along with what has been described by critics as his masterpiece: the double-album Dreamtime Return.
A California native, Roach lives in the Sonoran desert just outside Tucson, Arizona, to be closer to this long-standing source of inspiration. Like the stark, red-rock landscapes of Australia, the American Southwest has long provided Roach with the experiential and psychological richness that imbues his work with the power and serenity of nature, rather than the confining musical standards of popular culture and the urban textures of concrete, metal and glass. In this environment he has flourished with an uncanny ability to move between serene endless horizons of sound and intensely dynamic rhythmic forms, then morph this energy into an organic-electronic stew on the next project.
