In The Mouth Of Madness

About Release:

What we will have if we should mix the best works of "Bad Sector" and "Klaus Schulze", with the hypnotic-trance analogue electronic from "Runes Order" adding to this mix a deep ambient's quality? We will obtain the delightful pearl which was collected from the different and best styles of intellectual electronic music! The meeting of synthesist Raffaele Serra and Alio Die (supported this time by Zeit) create here an excellent quality of sound, in "Synapse - Shaihulud". you will find different amazing moods and a lot of aesthetic pleasure. This is the 5000 Spirits's treasure box, recomanded to all music lovers. As always, each track is accompanied with a wonderful artwork by Sara Luciani,which develop the concept of the album in the art area. Limited edition of 750 pieces

(Labelpress - Faria Records)

Five Thousand Spirits - 2006 - Schwarzschild Radius

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Sempiterna Mutatio

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 126 mb

About Release:

The return by FIVE THOUSAND SPIRITS Schwarzschild Radius CD,second part of a series, it is an unbroken journey of great intensity that Raffaele Serra ed Alio Die have characterized with an electronic refine touch and a flood vitality, always at the threshold of a mystery's whirlpool, an electronic mantra that in these lands have already given some kind of dependance. Great second chapter after the great 'Quantum Consciousness'.

Five Thousand Spirits - 2006 - Quantum Consciousness

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Sempiterna Mutatio

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 136 mb

About Release:

After seven years of silence they are heard again. Raffaele Serra and Alio Die's Quantum Consciousness is an mysterious electronic journey (5 tracks without interruption) that, though still ambient music, comes close to '70s-era electronic cosmic music. An unbroken journey of great intensity characterized with an electronic refined touch and a flood- like vitality, always at the threshold of mystery's whirlpool. Powerful electronic mantras that in these lands have already given some kind of earthly utterance. Great artwork in gold print on dark green.

Labelpress / Projekt

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Five Thousand Spirits - 1999 - Mesmeric Revelation

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Crowd Control Activities

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 120 mb

About Release:

5000Spirits is drone manipulator Alio Die's collaboration with Raffaele Serra.Together they craft a subtle, melodic study of mesmeric proportions, with are sounding delicacy not usually heard in the dark reality of Alio Die. Synth augmented silence made palpable: Five untitled tracks, no guidelines for perception (no tracks entitled, say, "Into The Mystical Valley Of Petrified Dreams", or some such concoction, which could possibly influence one's perception of the sounds incorporated therein, as opposed to the bungee drop approach of untitled tracks) except in the ears of each individual listener.Raffaele Serra and Stefano Musso (Alio Die) specialize in rich, full-bodied sonicscapes that swirl and surround, tethered to crevices in the void, whether via chips of plastic crumbling off of the drone-chiseled facing of a radiant sonic plateau (track three), or sailing on obsidian waters, the horns of nigh text inguished by wooden mallet on steel thunder strikes (track five), or simply capturing within the layered synth net, the cadences of resolute, comforting solitude (track four). A subtly powerful journey that opens the ears to the vast unexplored landscape within the mind... JC Smith

Five Thousand Spirits - 1995 - A Tapestry For Sourcerers

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Sempiterna Mutatio

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 148 mb

About Release:

This is a collaboration project with Alio Die, Runes Order and Raffaele Serra. Lowdrones beneath evocative motivic figures, with wisps of mystical synth sweeps that seem to come out of the deeper parts of the universe, bone-chilling natural sounds and summoning primitive drums, beckon us to follow on a long transcendental journey. From this point onwards, we find ourselves continually drawn into the spacious atmosphere of the music. As we float over the vast cosmic seas, unearthly sonorous monuments rise above us, piercing the dark celestial blanket, forcing an opening for the spiritual light to shine through.All is shed in a bright, while light now. All is peaceful and quiet. We have entered the world of inexistence. A wonderful out-of-body experience! TDR(Belgium)

Alio Die & Zeit - 2007 - Raag Drone Theory

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 184 mb

About Release:

Zeit is Tommaso Cimò, who teams up with Alio Die for a single, fragile,meditative track glittering with notes dripping off their respective zithers,gradually shape shifting for three seconds shy of the maximum capacity of a compact disc. Alio Die also plays psaltery and manipulates his trademark drones and loops, while Zeit commands a bowed psaltery, shruti box, and provides a slew of samples to the mix. Particularly effective are the sounds of dampened human commotion and interactio in appearing after about half an hour. Pristinely recorded(at one sitting?) in August 2006. More of that remarkably serene work of Alio Die which captures some gentle moment forever.

Stephen Fruitman (sonomu.net)

Alio Die & Luciano Daini - 2007 - End Of An Era

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 177 mb

About Release:

A project started slowly into reciprocal esteem from musical researches and alchemical and introspective approach to sounds. Quite a dark atmospheric album, where the obscurities give the proper preparation to some clear and intense moments.

Alio Die & James Johnson - 2007 - Cube 7 - Sospensione d'Estate

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 153 mb

About Release:

As a project, "Cube Music" has been produced with a utilitarian purpose, in the grand tradition of the first self-proclaimed (andliterally) ambient music, Brian Eno´s "music for airports". Alio Die and Johnson´s intent is to have an effect on the architectural spaces inhabited by humanity during its waking - and working - hours; theoffice cubical is mentioned specifically. And not unlike Eno´s initial instructions for the proper way to listen, this music is intended to be played just loud enough to beheard above the natural sounds of the space in question, unfortunately effectively ruling out most of the working class in its clattering factories and on its thunderous construction sites.Regardless of the unintended class division, Suspensione D´Estate is gorgeously performed, showcasing long, languid strokes of the viola by James Johnson. The viola is supremely well-suited to ambient, as its somewhat richer tone penetrates deeper than its spoiled celebrity cousin, the violin, and acts as both lead and resonant bottom at once.As usual, Alio Die mans an arsenal of acoustic toys and quiet noisemakers giving the landscape features, sometimes quite literally with environmental field recordings. Still, the most beautiful momentsof them all are when viola and zither meet for a moment, entwine, and then drift apart. Nothing surprising, just a single, sixty-six minute waft of awesome, ephemeral symmetry.Stephen Fruitman/Sonomu.net

Alio Die & Saffron Wood - 2006 - Corteggiando Le Mezzi

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 160 mb

About Release:

Italian soundscapist Alio Die loves to collaborate, and before getting to one of his finest solo records to date, let us pause to reflect on a couple of his finerco-piloting gigs from the past couple of years.Composedand recorded in 2004-05, with Saffron Wood playing psaltery and zither while Alio Die provides all other sound via flute, loops and field recordings (plus a piano sample borrowed from another collaborator, Festina Lente), ‘Corteggiando le Messi’ is stunning. It actually sounds like the ambient sounds have been recorded out of the ether without human interference, all very delicate and fragile. An unobtrusive and meditative suite sweetly soothing without even beingin the neigh bourhood of cloying.

Tuesday 28 September 2010

Alio Die & Werner Durand - 2005 - Aqua Planing

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 119 mb

About Release:

In the enigmatic Aqua Planing, Werner Durand and Alio Die create a sonorous,powerful, impervious space; sometimes liquid, subtly endearing. A meeting of mysterious sounds, both improvised and organised, of the traditional and self-made wind- instruments and their hybrids by Werner Durand (persian and circular water ney, circular clarinet,khen, prepared shakuhachi) with the editing, loops and enviromental recordings by Alio Die. As in the title track, where they recorded the sound of the wind blowing on the edge of a PVCtube sticking out of thecar window, while driving on an italian highway and mixed it with the sound of the ocean, filtered acoustically by the very same PVC tube, or the noise of a night train, the church bells in a mountain village, the musicians cause you to loose tracks of home and move towards purely surreal places.Their performance is always rigorous, the accurate tunings accuracy and special timbres of Werner Durand`s playing settled in the peculiar atmospheres created by Alio Die evoke unique interwoven listening spaces, rich with hues and shades,continuously evolving. Label press

Alio Die & Jack Or Jive - 2005 - Mei-Jyu

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Projekt

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 165 mb

About Release:

A very powerful release. But trying to describe this incredible CD is not easy. I have heard nothing like it. To callit “atmospheric” would be an understatement. It really is a soundtrack belonging to an enchanted other realm of existence, where everything finally distorts into an essential serenity. "MEI-JYU is an ethereal-ritual-ambient collaboration between Italian sound manipulator Stefano Musso (aka Alio Die) and the Japanese duo Chako and Makoto Hattori (Jack Or Jive). On Mai-Jyu,introspective ambient music by Musso joins with Chako's ethereal -otherworldly vocals. Opening parallel dimensions and supporting the dreamy quality of Chacko's voice, the music derived for acoustic zither sounds, improvisations done on the waters of a brook, and environmental sounds of bells or radio..." runs the introduction on the 'projekt.com' website. I can¹t really add to that. MichaelShankland "Cursor Mundi"

Alio Die & Festina Lente - 2005 - Il Sogno Di Un Piano Veneziano A Parigi

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 184 mb

About Release:

Yet another fine duet initiated by oneof the most prolific and adventurous composers of ambient music. On 25 January2003, Alio Die (Stefano Musso) and Festina Lente (which apporpirately means"hurry slowly" in Latin and is in fact one Michele Brieda) spent a single session improvising, with the latter playing pianos and the former zitheras well as adding sundry electronic effects and field recordings. Atthirty-five minutes and executed with such effortless grandeur, the opening track "Nei meandri piu remoti del sogno di Scarabeo" could just as well have been released on its own. Happily, it was not, as what comes after perfectly complements and reexamines what came before. (What´s more, Alio Dieis always generous with releases on his Hic Sunt Leones label, offering very long playing times - in fact this record is just a few seconds short of the maximum running time for a conventional CD.) Said track is highly cinematic in nature, a small masterpiece of taste and restraint. I myself picture Brieda seated at the pianoforte near an open window, dabbling distractedly, interested more inexploring acoustic timbres than creating music per se, as the hustle and bustleof the urban world hustles and bustles its way by - literally the world, as this album features field recordings from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Katmandu, California and beyond. This luscious track calls to mind a chamber version of Tetsu Inoue´s classic crossing of ambient electronica and urban field recordings, "World Receiver". Two or three of the remaining tracks engage in suggestive experiments in how to nudge ambient into the realm of a kind of amorphous improv, while the five-minute long fifth track and lovely twelve-minute closing track seem to reprise the first track both in mood and execution, thus bringing the listener full circle.Along time since two musicians collaborating for the first time complemented one another so well.Stephen Fruitman / Sonomu.net

Alio Die & Francesco Paladino - 2004 - Angel's Fly Souvenir

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 121 mb

About Release:

A Sonic Nightwalk by Alio Die and Francesco Paladino withcontributes by Jack or Jive andIn Gowan Ring. Angel's Fly Souvenir' a CD by ALIO DIE & FRANCESCO PALADINO withcontributes by IN GOWAN RING and JACK OR JIVE. An album out of any definition, music at the same time dreamy and deep, aconcrete and ethereal journey, born from the pleasure to experiment, the projectwas starting from acoustic sounds and voices recorded throw a long tube withzither loops, flutes, and different sonorous objects not identified at all.. andfrom the 'nose' sounds by Francesco Paladino. The album contains seven tracks,two of that are enriched by the epic collaboration track with In Gowan Ring in 'AncientConsciousness of the End', and with the voice by Chako of Jack or Jive in "FlowingOut from the Core of the Mountain' . Francesco Paladino apart from his passion with video art, it's active in musicfrom early seventies and was a member of Doubling Riders. The recordings of Angel's Fly Souvenir were started in spring 2003,and now the Cdis finally come out to the light, with its bright and dark abisses, and its ownnight meditations.

Alio Die & Zeit - 2003 - Sunja

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 185 mb

About Release:

Magic as blown its precious spores in the air. A human rite, humble and quiet, has evoked a red hot globe that gently illuminates the path toward the borders of Sunja, the dream place where all vibrations start. Sometimes the light comesdown from the sky, clear like a crystal. Some times it climbs slowly from the earth's depths, but it's always comforting. Crossing the thresholds of Sunja is like landing on an uncontaminated island,furrow its white sea-shores lapped by tepid foamy waters,been inebriated with wide floral smells and saltiness in secret places of the inland and in caves dug from time,gain the top of the plateau from which it is possible to see beyond... Sunja is creative strength enclosed in two long tracks of incredible intensity, rich in levels of knowledge, pure enchantment and beauty. The deep sound has an extraordinary symbolic and evocative power and it has arrived to a supreme purification owing to millennial percolations across the rock. Music shines,beholds, resounds at the bottom of ourselves, lives and spreads out. We realize,in listening, that a light warmth closes in upon us, everything loses its own original sense, the gates open... the road is beaten!

Label press

Alio Die & Saffron Wood - 2003 - The Sleep Of Seeds

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Hic Sunt Leones

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 113 mb

About Release:

Next is The Sleep of Seeds, a collaboration with Saffron Wood (who listeners might remember from way back on 1993'sThe Promises of Silence compilation). This is a fifty minute long meditation on the growth of plant life from seed to above-ground entity. This is an appropriate area of musical exploration because the work of Alio Die has always been about the microworlds of sound usually ignored by casual listeners. Why not focus onan area of life normally unseen, transmuted into musical impressions? Different from most recent Alio Die albums, this collaboration contains three sprawling tracks of ambience, rather than short sonic impressions. The first, "The Sleep of Seeds", is remarkably abstract--harking to the early days of Alio Die's work, when it resembled Ora and Art of Primitive Sound. This track is atwenty minute revolving of experimental elements, strange percussives, unknown electronic noises, dissonant textures. The sleep of seeds is clearly an alien slumber, with quiet dreams. The track dithers on improvisationally, ending with haunting bass drones and strange, muted cries. "Awakening in a New Form"is not remarkably different from the first track, though toward the end a transition is made to deeper levels of drone. The underworld life of the seed has expanded into more broad and beautiful terrain, as it stretches its nascent tendrils towards the sun. Finally, "A Dream of Mother Ground" expand seven further into strange whistling, tribal flutes, and marvelous water ambience--the plant is reaching high into the air, splashed with nature's water,photo synthesizing in a wild, natural life-orgy. This is a highlight of the album--there are no humans to interrupt the cycle; this is pure pre-history at work; when plants covered the landmasses of Earth, not choking the land, but an endless soft green caress. This is a singularly understated album, very much harkening back to the early Alio Die days of unusual environmental ambient. This will appeal most to fans of Alio Die's earliest material, though I personally find it to be somewhat of a throw back to music Musso has already expanded and improved upon. Perhaps not the most essential part of this trio, but an interesting trip nonetheless. Brian Bieniowski

Monday 27 September 2010

Alio Die & Mathias Grassow - 2003 - Expanding Horizon

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Release Entertainmen

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 341 mb

About Release:

A host of keys, synths, samples, drum loops, cithers, voices and nature sounds(plus Indian instrumentation and percussion from friends) are melted indiscernibly down into sprawling river like essences. For more than ten minutes,Enchanted Land crosses steadily churning streams of slightly contoured vapors;their low, rolling timbre is decorated with sparse cymbal clatters and watery textures. Ashort dip into Radiant Clearing is met by sizzling atmospheres, keening tones and a distantly throbbing rhythm. With sinuous twangs and tick-tocking percussion buried within its ever-turning billows, the deeply sheening currents of The First Bright Light cut through fog bank of smoke-and-chitter. Trickling rivulets splatter into the wavering gauze and emerging radiance of eighth track,Dewdrops (3:27) which closes the first CD at nearly 75 minutes. As string sjangle lazily in a swelling resonance, The Falcon seems to soar over washing surf; as the piece evolves, a thumping rhythm arises from slowly stirring ambiance, followed by sitar-iffically melting environments from The Poetess (which is in turn backed by the shorter, drummier dream of Serpent's Hollow). Another luxurious (and rather organic)earscape unfolds before the final track expels its mystical mistiness; Brughna Boine - The Elves Realm (28:12) exists in a land of cricket-inhabited haze which ripples and crests in oceanic motions. After 11 minutes metallic strands vibrate pensively into the shadowy stew. Overall, the sound colors tend toward an ot-unappealling greyness, though the somber palette is uplifted bysky-swallowing trails of gustiness, and naturalized by field recordings. Thenear-homogenity makes for a practically seamless immersion into masterly long form abstractions from Alio Die and Matthias Grassow. Drone fans are directed to head for the Expanding Horizon straight away!

Ambientrance.org

Alio Die & Antonio Testa - 2002 - Prayer For The Forest

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: GreenHouseMusic

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 126 mb

About Release:

This is a real favorite around here, sharing the same enchanting atmosphereas Healing Herb's Spirit. The percussive element is a bit stronger, and while its not specific to one region or style, the processed hand drums shift between somewhere in Africa and South America, then beyond to the new world. The gurgling soundscapes and organic textures give the feeling that you might find moss growing on your speaker ports by the time this CD is over. This and Healing herb's Spirit are a must-have if you are drawn to the ethno-shamanic sound blends.

Steve Roach

Alio Die & Amelia Cuni - 2001 - Apsaras

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Projekt

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 133 mb

About Release:

"Italian singer Amelia Cuni has a voice like a drink of mountain stream water, a voice that you might expect to find operating in popular song. But her area of expertise is that most ancient and rigorous of Indian styles, dhrupad singing.Cuni's vocal clarity and dusky sweetness sit oddly but perfectly in this austere context. Recent enthusiastic collaborators have included Paul Schütze, Terry Riley, Werner Durand and David Toop. This is not music that borrows a few Indian flavours, but a serious attempt to make something new and expressive from within Indian art music. It's both extraordinarily beautiful and very easy to listen to." Clibe Bell, The Wire MagazineApril 2001

Alio Die & Vidna Obmana - 2000 - Echo Passage

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Musica Maxima Magnetica

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 158 mb

About Release:

While running as a single 68.5-minute piece, Echo Passage is divided into three sections, Echoes of Light, A slip of darkness and The Passage; but there are no signposts to clearly delineate the pathways through these fantastic territories.Vidna Obmana and Alio Die have explored this realm and we're hereby invited to share its sonic bounty though each listener will have to discover their own aural trail. Flutey bursts, whispy shimmers, and the organic glistenings of trickling sands mark the entryway. It doesn't take long amongst these unusual textures to realize the previous world is now gone, and who needed it anyway...it's much more lovely here. A long, long stretch of rich multi-layered drones with no interruptions or percussive effects is eventually visited upon by sparse instances of faraway birdlike hoots and chatter as the sound waves become more subdued and darker. More organics emerge as a fizzy/bubbly current flows through these parts, and a powerful surging entity begins to periodically pulse in long,low tones. Everything returns to an airier, calmer state... for the time being at least. At the halfway point, those sonic molecules begin to shadow and thicken, becoming more ominous, like a mechanical wind, though still suffused with choir like threads of unearthly beauty. The turbulence grows; faint,unidentifiable ripples are heard through the chasmic howl. Cyclonic murk surrounds with distant vocal mutations and thin chimes occasionally lighting the way, leading into a realm of almost-silence. A thin drone blows in to be joined by mutedly brassy blares. Sporadic bird chirps add an Earthly touch to the otherwise unnatural atmospheres. A radiant haze begins to coalesce, swirling with gossamer strands, delicate yet powerful, gaining accompaniment from a two-tone counterpoint which temporarily fades away. Magical swells convolve around each other in strangely symphonic patterns, dancing like celestial auroras, wondrous to behold. All dissipates in the end, vanishing like the enchanting dreamworld it was... Echo Passage contains all the audio awe-inspiration you would expect from a musical meeting between Vidna Obmana and Alio Die. The extended length and expertly rendered atmospheres are perfectly suited for long, deep immersions into abstract time and place. Go there!

Sunday 26 September 2010

Alio Die & Nick Parkin - 2000 - Aquam Metallicam

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Musica Maxima Magnetica

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 123 mb

About Release:

Quietand, even, dark moments can also be found in “Unctious Vapour” or “Marcasites”,another magnificent track covered with sinuous and metallic percussion as well as with deep sounds. Finally and in search of the representation of the Mother Nature, we find the last three compositions: “Nitre”, “The Third Column” and “Lixivium”, those offering us a new musical dimension mainly orientated to the contemporary and experimental scene. It must be borne in mind that Nick Parkin has worked in this musical movement through important collaborations with some bands, as well as with dance and theater companies, but, above all, his participation with the project T.U.U. (another amazing experimental and ritual band) is highlyimportant. These tracks have been created with oscillated and varied effects,sounds and percussions, extracted from both real and electronic sources, and looking for a perfect equilibrium between the different elements from the earth(stones, organic and inorganic components, wind...), as if they would like to paint desolated, ruined or isolated landscapes through music. It should be pointed out that some instruments used for the release of this CD were hand made by the musicians themselves. The final result is very surprising, well-chosen compositions for an intimate album that raises the prestigious career of this Italian project. Another great success for Musica Maxima Magnetica!. Kill Fäktor

Alio Die & Antonio Testa - 1999 - Healing Herb's Spirit

Release type: Full-length

Style: Ambient

Country: Italy

Label: Crowd Control Activities

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 128 mb

About Release:

Alio Die is well known and respected worldwide for his ultra organic-soundscapes that often use extensively-processed natural sounds as the foundation for his hallucinogenic sound gardens. Here with fellow Italian Antonio Testa, the direction moves towards the shamanic as Testa brings his long list of ethnic percussion instruments to the mix. This is an outstanding stream of consciousness trip carried along by gentle rhythms, muted drones and Alio Die soundscapes hovering like a rainforest canopy. Distant voice chants come and go, strange flutes appear, a sudden rain stormoccurs and fades away to the surreal impression of a ceremony deep in a rainforest. This release along with the duo's Prayer for the Forest were released at two different times on different labels, but when played back-to-back it's clear these were separated at birth. They make a perfect pairing, as the overall feeling is maintained throughout both discs. File thesein the same space as Vine bark & Spore, Forgotten Gods, solo Jorge Reyes and the earlier music of Fourth World Godfather Jon Hassell. This and Prayer for the Forest are a must-have if you are drawn to the ethno-shamanic sound blends. Steve Roach