| Dreamtime Return | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | Steve Roach |
| Cover: | Dreamtime_Return_original.jpg |
| Released: | 1988 |
| Recorded: | 1987–88 at The Timeroom |
| Genre: | Ambient, electronic |
| Length: | 130:23 |
| Label: | Projekt Records |
| Producer: | Steve Roach |
| Prev Title: | Quiet Music |
| Prev Year: | 1988 |
| Next Title: | Stormwarning |
| Next Year: | 1989 |
Dreamtime Return (1988) is a double album by the American ambient musician Steve Roach, based on Australian Aboriginal culture and the concept of the Dreamtime. Described as "one of the pivotal works of ambient music" and "groundbreaking," the album has been included on a number of lists of the world's best music, including 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.
Roach had already begun composing this album when by chance he received a letter from writer/photographer David Stahl. Stahl had heard Steve Roach’s third album, Structures from Silence, on the radio while driving through the desert towards Mexico. He informed Steve Roach of his current documentary film project Art of the Dreamtime. Several months later Roach and Stahl traveled to Northern Australia to visit that region's ancient Aboriginal sites.
The earliest recorded track on the album is “The Other Side”. This piece was recorded live, with Kevin Braheny playing a Steiner EWI (Electronic Woodwind Instrument). This piece was broadcast on the National Public Radio program Music from the Hearts of Space in 1986. This particular edition of the program, titled Starflight 1, was so popular that later that year it was released as an album, consequently “The Other Side” was released two years before the rest of Dreamtime Return.
Before this album was released, Steve Roach traveled to Australia for musical inspiration.
In a 1989 appraisal for CD Review, Linda Kohanov lauded Dreamtime Return as Roach's "masterpiece" and wrote that Roach "demonstrates that electronic music's greatest potential may lie in bringing our most elusive dreams and ancient memories into focus through potent, highly imaginative soundscapes."[1]
Dreamtime Return helped Roach gain a worldwide reputation.[2] Retrospectively, the album has been described by the Hartford Courants Roger Catlin as "groundbreaking",[3] and by AllMusic as a landmark of "fourth world" music. Author David B. Knight opined that Roach "seeks to activate listeners to reach a deep level of consciousness that draws upon the trance-inducing music he has created."[4] Reviewing the album's 1998 reissue, Mark Burbey of Alternative Press wrote that Dreamtime Return "remains a landmark recording of extraordinary emotional resonance."[5] It has also been included on a number of lists of the world's best music, including Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (2008), which notes that it has come to be regarded as "one of the pivotal works of ambient music."[6]
John Diliberto, host of the ambient music radio program Echoes, commented in 2005 that Dreamtime Return was "a seminal recording that has influenced a generation of musicians",[7] while Hearts of Space presenter Stephen Hill said, "Musically Dreamtime richly deserves its classic status, but Roach also deserves credit for leading electronic musicians out of their sheltered studios and into an active relationship with the landscape, the wider world, and deep cultural history."[8]
After Dreamtime Return was remastered and reissued for its 30th anniversary in 2018, Bryon Hayes from Exclaim! wrote, "Thirty years later, in a period of intense rediscovery of barely remembered classic albums, it's fitting that this iconic gem has been uncovered."
All tracks by Steve Roach except where noted
The 1988 2-LP release lacks the songs "Truth in Passing" and "Through a Strong Eye." It also has shorter edits of several other pieces, including a version of "Looking for Safety" that is 20 minutes shorter than the CD version.