Steve Roach & vidnaObmana: Circles & Artifacts (2025 remaster) (Digital)

From Exposé While Steve Roach and Dirk Serries (a.k.a. VidnaObmana) have been individually been plying their respective crafts for many decades, their paths first converged in the mid-90s with the release of their first collaboration Well of Souls. With that as a starting point, the two continued to release material together for another ten years, one every year to two during that period. Both artists inhabit a similar soundspace, sculpting their musical creations in a floating ambient style informed by pure electronics and tribal sounds, although the way they arrive here are by two very different methods: Roach, with a history of working with modular (and other) synthesizers, hand drums, flutes, and didgeridoo; and Serries, whose primary sound sources would be flute, bells, percussion, guitar, and voices, all processed through a whole lot of effects and loops. The resulting collaborations are at once mystical and mesmerizing, calming yet energetic. Circles & Artifacts was Roach and Obmana’s fourth studio release together from 2000, following the three-disc set Ascension of Shadows one year earlier. Projekt has released this remastered (by Dirk Serries) version in 2025, a powerful epic-length piece just over an hour long of low level immersive music for meditation; it’s a piece that drifts along with the listener in active minimalism, slowly evolving as it proceeds, engaging the imagination with beauty and shimmer, occasionally approaching levels that are so low that a listener can barely hear without paying very close attention, but all coming back in a different shape and form for the next cycle. This is the kind of elaborate sound sculpture that’s meant to be experienced using high quality headphones that can pull out every detail — as well as mask all of the distractive sounds that can destroy that engrossment. This was a great piece 25 years ago, though it’s even better now — one can hear things that were nearly inaudible in its original release. -Peter Thelen