Album Notes

Steve Rose has been playing and recording steadily since the mid-80s. Having played in a variety of musical contexts (e.g., Jazz/Rock, Progressive/Rock), he has also dabbled frequently in the ambient genre. This collection of music is a representation of some of his first forays into the ambient world with pieces dating back to 1994. His wish to release these recordings publicly has been buoyed by his fellow musicians and friends. While being abstract in nature, many of the pieces have an underlying melancholy, yearning, and dreaminess.

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Reviews:

-- "Steve Rose’s Twin Earth: Collected Ambient Works feels more like a fully developed thematic work than a collection of recordings over a 15 year period. I knew I would like this CD from the opening notes of “Guitar Abstraction #3: Cumulus”, dreamy floating music. If you like ambient guitar treatments by the likes of Steve Roach, Robert Rich and Jeff Pearce, this disc is definitely for you. “Emergent Properties” is equally ethereal and a touch brighter if that’s possible. Fans of sparser works by Brian Eno will find a lot to like on this 15-minute floater. Rose’s music is, for the most part, the antithesis of dark ambient; although it has haunting qualities here and there, this is ambience that will lift your spirits. For example, “The Haunted” is darker, but has a cinematic almost majestic tone to it. The way this one combines drumming with atmospheric sounds reminds me somewhat of Thom Brennan’s excellent “The Path Not Taken,” one of my favorite ambient tracks. While I’ve listed several common points of reference, Rose’s music is certainly solid enough to stand on its own merits. The bubbly restless churning of “TMR-1C” and the sparse piano and synth textures of the title track take us into darker territory before returning to the light with the shimmering closing track, another ambient guitar piece that makes a perfect bookend to the opener." (Phil Derby of Electroambient Space: http://www.electroambientspace.com)


--Steve Rose, Twin Earth: Collected Ambient Works
I’ve kept Steve Rose’s suite of gently flowing guitar-based ambient in my iPod rotation for a couple of months now. It lives there quietly, making itself known now and then. While it’s not a groundbreaking or particularly innovative disk, it’s a solid handful of very listenable pieces, and especially pleasant mixed in on shuffle mode. Rose plays with a calm, sure hand. He knows his way around guitar effects–very little here sounds like a guitar until he intends it to–and structure. His pieces move slowly, chords like soft pastel marks on his aural canvases. It’s good background stuff that stands up to scrutiny and doesn’t wear thin easily. Rose can also switch it up, as evidenced by the tribally tinged “The Haunted,” with grim chords over a steady drum beat. Twin Earth is my first exposure to Steve Rose’s music, and I’m looking forward to more. (John Shanahan / Hypnagogue: http://hypnagogue.netfirms.com)


-- STEVE ROSE: Twin Earth
This release from 2008 features 62 minutes of harmonic ambience.
On five of the seven tracks, Rose plays synthesizers; on the remaining two songs, he plays guitars.
The first guitar piece is entirely atmospheric, featuring languid soundscapes of cloudlike fragility that sashay to and fro while subdued guitar notes pitter in the background, establishing the hint of a rhythmic presence. The second guitar piece acts as the album's finale, and here the guitar expressions are more conventional as moderate electrified strumming generates a heavenly rapture.
The electronics are styled in similar textural fashion. Airy tonalities provide vaporous foundations for additional tones and gently sweeping pulsations. Harmonic flows muster to form billows of ephemeral consistency. Calming and shimmering in nature, the sounds are delicately crafted.
This music exemplifies a balanced fusion of drifting harmonics and melodic layers. The overall gist is one of strictly ambient tranquillity.
One piece features passive percussion relegated to a remote vantage where the faint beats serve as subliminal embellishment for the swaying tonalities. Another track establishes liquid tempos with a bubbling effect amid pleasantly shrill chords of crystalline demeanor.
The compositions are serene and thoughtful, designed to instill a dreamy state of mind. This music expertly banishes tension, transporting the listener to environs of contagious relaxation. (Matt Howarth of Sonic Curiosity: http://www.soniccuriosity.com)