Roach's new album, LIGHT FANTASTIC is the sonic equivalent of a light show. To find out how he got there, check out DREAMING NOW . . . THEN, a comprehensive double-disc retrospective. The ambient master emerged from the depths of his Timeroom to speak with bn.com's Carol Wright.

barnesandnoble.com: What is space music?

Steve Roach: For me, the term relates not to the score for an outer space movie, but to inner spaces. The sounds express my creative space, and inspire the space the listener can be in. When I create a sound space, I have a strong sense of location and its associated moods. I may create a sonic picture of a real place, like a canyon, a city, a bird-filled pasture, or the grittiness of rock. But space music can also convey an imaginary space, like the twilight before waking, or the "no" space of THE MAGNIFICENT VOID.

bn.com: How to you create a sonic space?

SR: I approach its creation like a painter, using layers of colors and textures. Thanks to technology, I have an infinite choice of sound at my fingertips: I control my sound source, how the sounds build or decay, how they sequence, and how layers interact. I'll also record ancient instruments like the didgeridoo, which I helped introduce to the West through my work with David Hudson on DREAMTIME RETURN. The didgeridoo has a sustained electronic quality; its sounds move through harmonics of a tone almost in the way I used early synthesizers.

bn.com: Can space music be used as "trip" music?

SR: By using this music, you can create a space for yourself that fits any number of purposes: a meditative space, a lively space to enhance creativity, a rhythmic, "hyperactive" space for road trips, or a "dark" space for soul searching. I create my sound worlds to enhance the spaces I wish to be in, but it's open how the listener interprets and uses the music.

Space music used for a visionary journey comes from the shamanistic realm. The experience seems to be tempered through a heating process of inner work. Sometimes the tonalities I use have a darker quality, as the complex interplay of shadow and contrast are essential in nature and our relationships.

For inner journeying, the effect is enhanced by using good earphones, which isolate the music's 3D world. And if played quietly through the speakers in loop mode, space music can be like aural incense to create a sustained mood. You aren't actively involved, but when you turn it off, you know something has changed.

bn.com: You don't seem to rely on melody.

SR: If a bold melody sits in the middle of a thought-provoking landscape, your attention will be drawn to it and will be distracted from the vastness of the sound world. Melodic lines and harmonic content do occur in my music, however. Rhythm cycles interact to form sonic mandalas or moiré patterns, and the sonic atmospheres cycle against each other to form melodies.

bn.com: What about your latest albums, LIGHT FANTASTIC and BODY ELECTRIC?

SR: I'm moving into more electronic-based grooves and mandala-like patterns of sophisticated rhythms. That's absolutely connected to my earliest passions for the music of groundbreakers like Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley.

The new double-CD, DREAMING NOW . . . THEN, spans almost twenty years of my musical explorations. The first track, recorded in 1981, sounds like it could have been from BODY ELECTRIC, which I created in 1999 with Vir Unis. LIGHT FANTASTIC has an aggressive movement to it, yet some people find it to be serene.

I'm aiming to create the perfect body music -- not dance or trance but some hybrid that brings everything together so when you hear it, you think, "Yes, this is it!" Part of this process externalizes regions of the body with sound and rhythm, approaching it from a fractal mandala level that brings order out of chaos.

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