Interview between Steve Roberts (Amongst Myselves) and Micheal Foster of Ambient Visions

AV: Where did your love of music originally come from?

SR: Wow what a question. I started out listening to popular music as I imagine most people did in the 70s. My brothers had a great influence in what I heard in my early life having 3 older ones. It's funny but I think what I love is sound more so than music especially since I consider lots of the music I now listen to and compose to be more sound art than music. Be it naturally created sound or electronically realised.

AV: Who were some of the first electronic/atmospheric music artists that you listened to and what was it that attracted you to this kind of music?

SR: I probably started hearing Electro Acoustic sounds when I was quite young on an Australian radio program, "Scratching the Surface". My brother and I thought it was funny and scary, I was only 12 years old or so. It was interesting because unlike pop music you didn't really know what was going to happen next. It was also on late at night when the surrounding environment was quiet. From this left field influence to something a bit more popular, one of my brothers bought a Tomita album, I think it was Snowflakes are Dancing. My brother having more main stream interests was also into "classical" orchestral music which I suppose Snowflakes fell into. I found it interesting in that he used synthesisers to create orchestral sounding instruments. It was using a synth to recreate acoustic instruments. I was just as intrigued by the rear cover of the record which had a picture of Isao in his studio surrounded but all his gear. I wanted that ! But that was the mainstream. What I found more interesting were snippets of synths that I would hear in pop music which were not imitating an acoustic instrument but were producing something I'd never heard before. I also started hearing other rock groups like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Rick Wakeman, Genesis, all using synths as a main part of their music but once again nothing new in the style of music.

As far as atmospheric music I think Tangerine Dream would have been an initial spark for me. This lead to Edgar Froese's Epsilon in Malaysian Pale which certainly had a great influence especially since I had a second-hand album full of scratches which certainly added to the effect. Another album that was part of that era for me is David Bedford's "The Odyssey". For me the long pieces with minimal sequence lines really started me off in the direction of long form beatless music. Continuing on, Steve Roach and Robert Rich helped bolster my direction.