“Fever Dreams III is a beautiful album that compensates for the nightly coldness of the Immersion series”
Disc 1 70:46
1 Electro Erotic 11:47
2 MetaSense 7:49
3 Polyopsia 18:16
4 Pulse Current 6:04
5 Pulse Impulse 4:28
6 Borderland 6:29
7 Moonshroud 6:21
8 Phantom Fever Rising 9:29
Disc 2
1 Melted Mantra 72:45
(DDL 143:31) (V.F.)
(Tribal Ambient)
It was with the tip of my ears that I listened to FEVER DREAMS III. With the triple-CD set Immersion: Three, the Californian synthesist crystallizes himself in plastic, abstract works where even the breaths of the soul seem more agitated. It's therefore between 2 puffs of Immersion that FEVER DREAMS III appears. It's an opus which flows in arid and tribal plains and which soak in the ambiences of the very beautiful Western Spaces. An interesting double CD which flows like a breath of spirituality where Steve Roach hesitates between the abysses of the void and the circular flights of air currents which circumvent the high mountains and the stelae of the American southern deserts.
Electro Erotic opens with a superb slow and sensual rhythm. The movement takes shape on a good curve of bass and fine percussions which decorate a synth filled of steel-guitar laments. A gentle introduction to an acoustic musical universe which accentuates its analog effects and cymbals twirling on imprecise lines. This is what leads to MetaSense and its frivolous pulsations on a floating synth with discreet layers. A long movement with sound effects whose echoes fall in the nervous turbulence of Polyopsia and its synths with airy cymbals which pass like air currents on a background with eclectic atmospheres. This strange tribal rhythm with the dust of a cosmic desert is attenuated on Pulse Current which is animated by such a syncretic sound life. Pulse Impulse revives the tribal rhythm on percussions with rolls of thunder in a very Roach atmosphere; hovering synth with quirky but lyrical forms and paralyzed wind on broths of metallic dust. Big Roach which increases the atmospheric density a notch for each title, giving the impression of witnessing a cosmic tornado whose zenith is Moonshroud. Melted Mantra starts with a dark intro with flute sounds as mythical as they are mystical, on synthesized layers with abstract moldings. The deployment is slow, but the rhythm remains progressive, with tribal percussions which cut a dark atmosphere with opaque veils. And so, goes this long piece with a tribal flavor moved by the force of atmospheric waves, but with certain wanderings, of a migrating synth which encloses its strata in a spiritual depth which seeks its Mantra.
FEVER DREAMS III is a beautiful album that compensates for the nightly coldness of the Immersion series. Proof that Roach can do more than lull his audience to sleep! It is beautiful and poetic, as he alone is capable of bringing the totems of the desert to life. To hear the empty head, to capture all the nuances of percussions, syncretic effects and synth with wandering and dark waves of Steve Roach.
Sylvain Lupari (January 24th, 2008) ***½**
Available at Timeroom Editions Bandcamp