MIDNIGHT MOON

MIDNIGHT MOON

• Midnight
• Roach, Steve
• Moon

Tribal-ambient maestro Steve Roach leaves the percussion behind and returns to glorious stripped-down form on <i>Midnight Moon</i>. Closer in spirit to albums from the beginning of his career (notably 1984's <i>Structures from Silence</i>) and some of the early work of ambient pioneer Harold Budd, <i>Moon</i> sees Roach pick up a new instrument: the guitar. Not surprisingly, he wields it like a keyboard, weaving different sustained tones together to present something soothing yet just unsettling enough to make you pay attention. The instrument's lonely, gently foreboding sound undulates through the disc's 70-plus minutes, evoking a timeless desert landscape captured during the stillness of night. Along with <i>The Magnificent Void</i>, this is undeniably one of Roach's strongest pure-ambient recordings. <i>--Steve Landau</i>