I'll be posting this at Hypnagogue shortly, but thought I'd give it to
the group first.

I had driven six hours, enduring rain and the damnable hell-on-earth
that is the New Jersey Turnpike, to get to Philadelphia. And as I
stood (at last!) outside of St. Mary's, I already knew that I was in
for something special and very much worth the drive. The place itself
exuded calm—this lovely little sanctuary in the middle of the city. I
had made it at last, having promised myself countless times to do so,
to The Gatherings. More to the point, I had made the pilgrimage to see
Steve Roach, with Jeffrey Koepper opening. Given my journey I expected
a lot from the evening's entertainment. I had no reason to worry.

Jeffrey Koepper had performed at The Gatherings in the past as part of
Pure Gamma, but this outing marked his first live solo set. Tucked
away behind racks of his beloved analogue keys, Koepper dropped into
"Between Dreams" from the album "Etherea" to start the night off with
a bit of beat-driven ease loaded with rich, warm layers. Transitioning
through a sweeping gust of stellar wind, he laced a bit lush
spacemusic with a sudden, strong beat and a twangy bass line to create
a groove that smacked of perfectly crashing a truckload of Tangerine
Dream into a train carrying Art of Noise. This wound its way into
broad, dark spacemusic tropes of a certain lovely strangeness. Soon
enough the sequencer kicked in, ushering in a Middle Eastern-tinged
melody. (Upon further reflection, I'm thinking this was "Byzantine
Machine," the lead track from Koepper's second CD, "Momentium.") For
his final offering, Koepper let a drone mutate into its own beat,
which regenerated, multiplied, and grew, seemingly exponentially and
almost endlessly, spawning a body-swaying, hypnotically soul-freeing
beat that made it nearly impossible to not jump up and dance.
Fortunately--or unfortunately, depending on your outlook--decorum
prevented such an outburst from the assembly. (I learned later that
this last number will appear on an upcoming Koepper release.)

A brief break, and then the sweet bite of incense filled the air in
St. Mary's, heightening the already sacrosanct feel. Under quiet
atmospheres and to a resounding round of applause—including a cry of
"Welcome back!"—Steve Roach took the stage. He opened his 90-minute
set with long, full synth pads that grew in intensity, intermingled
with hints of choral voices. On the big screen behind him were images
from the "Kairos" DVD—slow pans across beautiful, arid and sculptural
desert spaces that gave way to flowing, psychedelic imagery. Music and
visuals blended perfectly. Time-lapse lightning flashed across gray
banks of cloud, thunder shook the church, and a vivid red sun rose to
a swell of Roachian beauty. As the visuals changed, the music went
with it, turning darker and more ominous. Sequenced beats rose,
quickly picking up pace and taking on a tribal feel. A deep,
resounding pulse eased in and rushes of electronic wind rolled through
the space. The beat became aggressively loud, charging and animalistic
and then burst—falling into a quiet, aquatic drift. Across time the
feel turned more toward the thick, gothic chords of Magnificent Void
as the visuals moved to space. Out of nowhere, a star went nova,
helped along by a superbly orchestrated lighting shift (call it a
burst) by Gatherings light man Jeff Towne, and the music spiraled down
into what sounded like a riff from Possible Planet—very organic,
insectile. Here again the sequencers began to up the beat and behind
his gear Roach was grooving to the rhythm he was evolving, head
bobbing to the pulse, building it, deeply feeling it, riding the wave
he'd created, and suddenly the room was launched into a full-blown,
full-volume star-ride at maximum volume, the sound so dense as to be
tactile. Slowly it pared itself back, layers dropping away to
sequencer runs and the hush of wind. The visuals gradually grabbed
hold of solidity again, the abstracts morphing back to those wide
Western spaces as the music picked up traces of its own origin,
reminders of where the voyage had begun. And still the music eased
itself back toward simplicity, the volume gracefully receding to a
single sustained, fading chord—and then, at the moment you felt it was
over there was one more breath, one more quiet chord, rising then
fading toward silence—and again, at that surely final moment it
birthed one more, quieter still, the volume always fading until at
last, the lingering moments of journey's end completed, it was subtly,
quietly and perfectly finished.

An astonishing evening of spacemusic, and for me a superb introduction
to the music that I love played live.