A Tuvan throat singer, a doom metal band, an Italian DJ and a jazz trumpeter walk into a church.
This scene is not a setup for a joke, nor is it a symptom of religious psychosis, unless experienced before or after the last weekend of August. Rather, it is a cursory glance at the Soundquest Festival, a three-day event spearheaded by La Rosa Arts Center co-owner David Slutes and ambient music pioneer Steve Roach. The festival runs Aug. 28-30 at La Rosa, and will showcase ambient, metal, and experimental stylings of all kinds.
“I’m really encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of what they normally would experience and get this heroic dose — so to speak — of really passionate and creative people pushing it to the edges,” said Roach, an innovator of the ambient genre since the early ‘80s.
Ambient is an experimental style of electronic music focused on tone and atmosphere, often defying traditional song structures and rhythm. The term was coined in the mid-70s by Brian Eno, a forefather of the genre. It’s music that takes the listener on a “dynamic, spiritual, emotional roller coaster,” Roach explained. Despite being lyric-less, each of Steve Roach’s pieces follows archetypical plot structures in which sonic conflicts steadily build and resolve, as melodies crescendo to heroic peaks and crash to near whispers.
“It’s like when you go into a film that’s really dynamic and really takes you on a journey, and you kind of surrender yourself to it,” Roach said. “It’s very immersive and conjures up a full range of emotions.”
An early trial of the Soundquest event took place in 2010, when Roach invited electronic artists from around the country to perform at the Berger Performing Arts Center. The musician later brought the idea online, hosting a three-day live festival on stream during the pandemic. This year’s festival is the product of a partnership between Roach and David Slutes, co-owner of La Rosa. The two met through Roach’s monthly ambient series at Hotel Congress, where Slutes served many years as entertainment director.
Since La Rosa’s opening late last year, the restored Benedictine church has quickly become a landmark of Tucson’s music scene and a space determined to platform innovative and eclectic performers. Outfitted with a state-of-the-art sound system and unique spiritual locale, La Rosa is an “absolutely dream-built container” for the Soundquest mission, Roach said.
“It’s a really vital new venue that is supporting the range of what we’re presenting now. The fact that we could do this, that I could bring the idea to David and that he would embrace it — I could not imagine it happening without him.”
This new iteration of the festival packs a curveball, which is the union of ambient and metal music. The choice comes from Roach’s connection to Blood Incantation, a progressive death metal band from Denver that the musician has toured with extensively.
Two of Blood Incantation’s guitarists, Morris Kolontyrsky and Paul Riedl, are also ambient artists who appear on the bill as solo acts. There is a significant intersection between the two genres’ performers and fans, Roach explained, a crossover owed to shared values. Each style of experimental music brims with emotional authenticity and sonic dynamism.
“What I love is music that is passion-filled and challenging, yet really visceral and emotional,” Roach said. “It’s the full immersion and cathartic nature of both forms of music.”
The festival’s lineup is replete with those qualities. Friday, titled “Metalmorphic,” kicks off with Soriah, a Tuvan throat singer who has opened for bands like Bauhaus and Einsturzende Neubauten and closed the Tucson All-Souls Procession. Then, Blood Incantation and doom metal ensemble Pallbearer, another band in Roach’s circle, will take the stage.
Saturday’s “Ambient Showcase” will feature Morris Kolontyrsky (of Blood Incantation); Karima Walker, an ambient artist from Phoenix; Zack Hansen, creator of Tucson’s popular Desert Drone series; and Tony Obr, a professor of electronic music in Phoenix.
Later, the host will bring the audience along on his two-hour metaphysical voyage, “An Evening with Steve Roach: At The Edge of Forever.” The night will close out with Cat Child, a valley DJ, and Giuseppe Ottaviani, an Italian DJ and trance artist, who will usher in a high octane, dance party atmosphere.
“Sonic Sacred Sunday” will carry on with an afternoon of meditative sets by Paul Riedl of Blood Incantation; Serena Gabriel, a solo artist of “atmospheric, etheric, beautiful music”; Nathan Youngblood, a “gifted musician” and Roach’s assistant for more than twenty years; Chris Meyer, who is known for his work with modular synthesis; and Jeff Greinke, another early practitioner of the ambient genre. Roach will also perform Sunday alongside wife Linda Kohanov, a classically trained electric viola player.
The festival will conclude with a genre-defying set from Takuya Nakamura, a world-renowned artist who blends jungle music (a frenetic electronic style of the ‘90s U.K. scene) with improvisational jazz trumpet. Beyond his work as a solo performer, Nakamura’s collaborators include Quincy Jones and David Byrne.
In addition to the music, a Soundquest Fair will span all three days of the festival. The marketplace, located in the “catacombs” beneath the venue’s main floor, will comprise vendors and artisans selling synthesizers, modular gear, records, and more.
According to Roach, a major appeal of Soundquest will be its compelling visual elements by artist, animator, and filmmaker Cool Maritime. Choreographed live by a team of experts, the visuals will play a vital role as a “breathing, diaphanous visual accompaniment” to the music, and in a festival celebrating experimental sounds, will be a point of access for the unaccustomed.
“People who do not normally listen to that dynamic range of music will be completely taken in by it, because you have the visual aspect,” Roach said. “It’s completely mesmerizing to watch live.”
“If you have any kind of curiosity or wonder at all, just come out and experience the festival, because it’s going to have so many different aspects to it. In the same way you would turn yourself over to a really amazing film experience, it’s beyond the music itself.”
SOUNDQUEST FESTIVAL
WHEN: Friday, Aug. 28 – Sunday, Aug. 30
WHERE: La Rosa, 800 N Country Club Road, Tucson, 85716
COST: Full-fest passes begin at $118, Individual Tickets from $20
INFO: eventim.us/event/soundquest-festival/690001
