Bloom Ascension

Steve Roach’s work has been so suited for the CD and then the streaming era that it’s sometimes hard to remember a time when he was limited to vinyl- and cassette-length options. But Roach himself hasn’t forgotten and in the same way he carefully works with older gear as desired, 2019’s Bloom Ascension is a self-conscious and striking callback to those days. Consisting of four short pieces, the longest at sixteen minutes and the shortest at six, it’s a lovely dip into a favored blend of floating textures and bubbling sequencer progressions.