Echoes Podcast: Rich Ruth and Steve Roach

Rich Ruth's Eclectic Fusion & Steve Roach Structures from Silence at 40 in Echoes Podcast.

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Rich Ruth with Mikaela Davis at Johnny Brenda’s Photo: J.Diliberto

In  a double-shot Echoes Podcast we’ll hear from Rich Ruth and Steve Roach talking about the anniversary of Structures from Silence

First in the Echoes Podcast we talk to Rich Ruth. That’s the performance name of Michael Ruth, a multi-instrumentalist from Nashville.  With Rich Ruth, you can hear 4 or five influences in any song. One track alone might conjure up John Coltrane, Brian Eno, Gong, Black Sabbath and King Crimson. Yet it all holds together in Rich Ruth. He has a new album out, Water Still Flows on Jack White’s Third Man records. His basic music philosophy is, wherever it goes he follows.

Rich Ruth: Essentially, it’s all made in like a laboratory with me spending hours and hours and hours, just like manipulating and, adding and subtracting until things feel right and just listening over and over and over again and getting inspired and tracking a bunch of guitars or synths or something and then sending it to people and so it just becomes this hodgepodge of all these different voices that I’ve arranged in these weird ways

His music is a flow from ambient to free jazz to parts unknown. We talk with Rich Ruth in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.

Rich Ruth Feature Playlist
Artist – Album – Title

Rich Ruth – God Won’t Speak – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – No Muscle, No Memory – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – Aspiring to the Sky – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – God Won’t Speak – Water Still Flows
Kansas Bible Company – Summer Seance – Paper Moon
Kansas Bible Company – The Desert She Screams – Hotel Chicamauga
Rich Ruth – Coming Down – Calming Signals
Rich Ruth – Blue Shell – Water Still Flows
John Coltrane – Ascension Pt.1 – Ascension
Rich Ruth – Crying in the Trees – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – Desensitization and Reprocessing – It’s Over, I Survived
Rich Ruth – Heavy and Earthbound – It’s Over, I Survived
D.G. Godman – If You Were Someone I Loved – Space and Time
Rich Ruth – Thou Mayest – It’s Over, I Survived
Pharoah Sanders – Astral Traveling – Thembi
David Bowie – Warzawa – Low
Rich Ruth – Somewhere In Time – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – Action at a Distance – Water Still Flows
Dying Fetus – Subject to Beating – Reign Supreme
Rich Ruth – God Won’t Speak – Water Still Flows

Steve Roach circa 1984 in Original Timeroom

Steve Roach has made over a hundred recordings in the last 42 years, but two of them stand out.  One is Dreamtime Return, his first foray into techno-tribal sounds, and the other dates back 40 years to his third album, Structures from Silence.  It was an album that took ambient music to the next level, from Brian Eno’s experimental abstractions, to a music forged in a contemplative crucible and born purely of electronic instruments. Originally self-released, then picked up by the Fortuna label, Projekt Records has just put out a deluxe triple CD anniversary edition.  We go back in time with Steve Roach to hear about the foundation of Structures from Silence.

PLAYLIST FOR STEVE ROACH STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE FEATURE

Artist – Title – Album
Steve Roach – Reflections in Suspension – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Mysteries Continue – Traveler
Steve Roach -Structures from Silence – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Beyond – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Below – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Reflections in Suspension –Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Quiet Friend – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition