Hello, as riots going on all over the US as a response to the police cynically killing a non resisting handcuffed black man, it turns out the US police kill 1,000 people every year some criminals but mostly people without a voice, what's different this time people filmed the action, the later victim standing cuffed casually waiting to be taken to the police station, clearly this irritated the police officers and they decided to get physical with him and this led to his death, again all on camera. Shocking,but doubtful things will change the US is simply too corrupted and enslaved to the cult of money....
Today's Artist is Stefano Musso who began recording music under the pseudonym of Alio Die in 1989. "Alio Die" is Latin for "another day", used as a greeting in Roman times as a positive look towards a better tomorrow......N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Stefano Musso studied art and electronics in his home town of Milan, Italy, and began performing ambient, electro-acoustic music under the name Alio Die in 1989. Characterized by evocative acoustic sounds manipulated and tendered electronically, Alio Die's work builds intimate soundscapes tied to the mystery and majesty of life and nature. His first CD "Under an Holy Ritual", released on his label Hic Sunt Leones in 1992 and re-released on Projekt in 1993, was received with international acclaim. Enthusiastically received in his home country, 'Holy Ritual' expanded Musso's international presence significantly in 1993 when it was licensed by the popular U.S. darkwave label Projekt. His music is a shadowy, cavernous, intensely detailed fusion of acoustical elements, step-and-repeat sample treatments, sparse, echoing percussion, and deep, atmospheric sound design, playing ambient's static tendencies off of shifting melodic and textural passages that suggest movement without sacrificing the music's vague, entropic formlessness. He subsequently released more than 25 CDs, and collaborated with many well-known artists such as Robert Rich, Vidna Obmana, Mathias Grassow, Nick Parkin, Yannick Dauby, Amelia Cuni, Raffaele Serra, Ora, Antonio Testa.
"Natural and acoustic sounds and selected noises, electronically treated and reworked, are integrated in a meditative and spiritual context that often, in the feeling, becomes close to a prayer. Visible static, this music is rich of hidden sounds, layers of elements to discover at each listening. Alio Die's music, in the consciousness space that creates, it's a melting of technology and mysticism, like a new ritual with echoes of a medioeval time, deep and grounded in introspection."
and as this bio is rather limited here's an interview he did in 2008
2008 intervew by Tobias Fischer, he is editor-in-chief of tokafi, publisher of 15 Questions and a cultural editor for Germany's biggest Printmag on Recording, „Beat“.
Hi! How are you? Where are you?
I’m fine, moving at a good point.
What’s your view on the music scene at present? Is there a crisis?
If you mean the music business, yes it is in a kind of crisis... We know the reasons about that, downloads from the internet mainly. Less people buy original cds and more and more people copy. I’s happening to experimental and non commercial music, too, where listener were usually more motivated to buy the real cd. So we see that sales are strongly in decline and lots of shops and distributors have had to close down and cease their activities after many years.
On the other hand, the number of releases is still growing a lot, so the crisis it is not at all on the artistic activity side. With this in mind, I try to optimize the quality of the cd releases with digipack artworks and limited editions of 300 copies. The possibility of getting information quicker and exchange it is a good input to creativity, expecially for people which before lived in a kind of isolation from the rest of the world where they thought the things happened.
What, would you say, are the factors of your creativity? What “inspires” you?
My creativity derives from my special feeling about reality. Perhaps it is that what is forbidden and missing in our dayly life, which inspires me, it is a kind of ‘nostalgic’ feeling in a purified way, without the emotional aspect. I can find inspiration in nature or through observing life itself, or from other music and cultures as well. I’m intersted in disclosing the magic of the present moment in multilayered feelings of a simple complexity. The medicine must work on myself first, but the mixture must be usefull to everybody confronted with that listening experience, so I try to build up something not too personal, and perfectly tuned. I also aim at expressing the circularity of time, to find a point of view that is beyond time.
How would you describe your method of composing?
Taking inspiration from a kind of symbolic language through which I’ve found access to its code, I combine and decorate feelings by different sound elements, then add some random elements born from the present moment.
The process includes improvisation in the sessions with acoustic instruments and objects, but then the sounds are mixed in an accurate way and not so much things are left out.. I let Intuition guide random elements like synchronisation between layers and filters for example. I usually start experimenting with tunings derived from acoustic recordings and field recordings and then treat the sounds in my studio. I also like to sample in a creative way. By this I mean transforming the original source into something different...
How do you see the relationship between sound and composition?
In my music, the qualities of sound and composition are very closely aligned. Some melodical elements are also a part of it, but the more important thing is the right relation between all the ingredients of the music, tunes and vibes coming together to create a new creature ready to work with moods and states of consciousness of the listener.
How strictly do you separate improvising and composing?
Improvisations are usually directed to find a natural feeling that is not yet music, but sometimes it is a ‘controlled’ improvisation by special tunings already decided before. In any case, in the improvisational process I try to capture the feeling of the moment. This is already part of the composition, as it will help to give direction to the entire process of the recordings.
What does the term „new“ mean to you in connection with music?
Something new is something that brings together different elements for the first time, or old elements combined in a new way.
There is nothing new at all, I think usually we transform differents inputs and styles into a new language that come from our personal sensibility and creativity. Creativity must surely be fresh and new everytime, but personally, I like the ancient and the mysterious knowledge that comes from the past, as I don’t belive in any kind of ‘evolution’... In our era, to speak about devolution it actually more correct.
Do you personally enjoy multimedia as an enrichment or do you feel that it is leading away from the essence of what you want to achieve?
I personally enjoy a creative use of new technology. The point is not to agree or disagree with a new way of entertainment, but in the way we use it.
What constitutes a good live performance in your opinion? What’s your approach to performing on stage?
I don’t play live often. This is due to the fact that it is not possible replicating the works I create in the studio in a concert situation. So I tried to adapt some part of acoustical inserts and improvisations with real instruments with the looped electronic effects already embedded into basic sounds. I played live performances few times with Opium and with Zeit on the last two occasions.
I used also a support of a video with beautiful morphings of paintings by Yanusz Gilewicz,and kaleidoscopic mandalas images by Alessandro Vittorio(Ozis) and the results was wonderful.
Do you feel an artist has a certain duty towards anyone but himself? Or to put it differently: Should art have a political/social or any other aspect apart from a personal sensation?
Absolutely. I don’t take care of political/ social matter at all, but in any case I think the muse of art should guide one in some way, giving inspiration to new possibilities in cultural and human aspects. Apart from entertainment, this is a basic meaning and primary reason for music that can build bridges towards different levels of consciousness. If the work of an artist, apart from his originality, is totally disconnected from this important duty, it is totally devoid of any meaning and it is only self-celebratory.
How, would you say, could non-mainstream forms of music reach wider audiences without sacrificing their soul?
In our times there is no risk of becoming too popular with this music or of become commercial- At least not for me... It does happen sometimes with other kinds of ”Ambient” music but still very rarely.
You are given the position of artistic director of a festival. What would be on your program?
Medieval-pagan music like Faun, Daemonia Nimphe, In Gowan Ring for the afternoon, Jack or Jive, Amelia Cuni and Terry Riley, evening and Robert Rich, all night long.
Many artists dream of a “magnum opus”. Do you have a vision of what yours would sound like?
Usually it is the last music released.. But in this case more than usually it is my last album AURA SEMINALIS. You must know that I considered Opus Magnum as the title to this one (I later rejected it for being too obvious..). By the way my Opus magnum will be researched again and looped again later, it is a work still in progress...
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The title is also the opening track of this macroscopic journey into a world which spontaneously engages us when we travel through it. A link between life and earth, a passageway between time andchange. A melodius itinerary in which a time hourglass often makes no sense butonly the sound of articulated and fragmentary notes...50 minutes between a seedand a grain of soil to wander into an infinite space while listening to a faraway earth longing sound. Recorded in Savona Italy august 2002, with different flutes, tubes, accordion, various objects, rattles, shells,bells... Drones and loops, effects,editing and mastering
With its special hand-made package, containing seeds, leaves and other organic material, no two copies are alike. The title "The Sleep of Seeds" is also the opening track of this macroscopic journey into a world which spontaneously engages us when we travel through it... a link between life and earth, a passageway between time and change... an organinc sonic itinerary in which an hourglass often makes no sense, with only the sound of articulated and fragmentary notes... 50 minutes to wander between a seed and a grain of soil, into an infinite space while listening to a far away earth-longing sound. Recorded in Savona Italy August 2002 with various flutes, tubes, accordion, found objects, rattles, shells, bells and drones.
Alio Die n Saffron Wood - The Sleep Of Seeds (flac 194mb)
01 The Sleep of Seeds 22:08
02 Awakening in a New Form 7:14
03 A Dream of Mother Ground 19:34
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
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.
Alio Die n Saffron Wood - Corteggiando Le Mezzi (flac 306mb)
01 Radianza lunare 7:03
02 Cleaning Resonance 15:46
03 Duello con l'incommensurabile 13:06
04 Path in Absence 15:27
05 Corteggiando le messi 8:07
06 Argentea nostalgia 9:59
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Magic has blown its precious spores into 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 comes down from the sky, clear like a crystal. Sometimes 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, its white sea-shores lapped by tepid foamy waters, inebriated with wide floral smells and saltiness in secret inland places and in caves dug from time, on top of the plateau from where it's 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 with a supreme purification owing to millenial percolations across the rocks. 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
Alio Die n Zeit - Sunja (flac 365mb)
01 The Gates Are Open 32:16
02 At The Threshold Of Sunja 47:41
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Tommaso Cimò (Zeit) is back together with Alio Die composing the long flow raga-drone of "Raag Drone Theory" with acoustic sessions recorded in the cloister of the Annunziata in Lunigiana. The warm tones of acoustic dulcimer and zither are mixed with the sound of a shruti-box, while the rest is done by the usual drones & loops dispensed with appropriate measures by the two. From a lineage perspective, this mix of zithers and electronics seems to be quite similar to the music of Laraaji from decades before except where Laraaji's music was more informed by both Brian Eno and contemporary New Age music, Alio Die and Zeit's captures a darker, more exotic and multi-cultural feel. It's a massively long piece at close to 80 minutes, and in that sense veers closer to other long form Alio Die albums like Password for Entheogenic Experience. This is atmospheric music to drift off to, longform waves and drones with drifting zither and psaltery sounds, a microcosm of plucked and bowed strings in a macrocosm of natural and sonic enhancements. It's all beautifully cosmic and relaxing like all the best drifters should be.
Alio Die n Zeit - Raag Drone Theory (flac 334mb)
01 Raag Drone Theory 79:57
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Today's Artist is Stefano Musso who began recording music under the pseudonym of Alio Die in 1989. "Alio Die" is Latin for "another day", used as a greeting in Roman times as a positive look towards a better tomorrow......N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Stefano Musso studied art and electronics in his home town of Milan, Italy, and began performing ambient, electro-acoustic music under the name Alio Die in 1989. Characterized by evocative acoustic sounds manipulated and tendered electronically, Alio Die's work builds intimate soundscapes tied to the mystery and majesty of life and nature. His first CD "Under an Holy Ritual", released on his label Hic Sunt Leones in 1992 and re-released on Projekt in 1993, was received with international acclaim. Enthusiastically received in his home country, 'Holy Ritual' expanded Musso's international presence significantly in 1993 when it was licensed by the popular U.S. darkwave label Projekt. His music is a shadowy, cavernous, intensely detailed fusion of acoustical elements, step-and-repeat sample treatments, sparse, echoing percussion, and deep, atmospheric sound design, playing ambient's static tendencies off of shifting melodic and textural passages that suggest movement without sacrificing the music's vague, entropic formlessness. He subsequently released more than 25 CDs, and collaborated with many well-known artists such as Robert Rich, Vidna Obmana, Mathias Grassow, Nick Parkin, Yannick Dauby, Amelia Cuni, Raffaele Serra, Ora, Antonio Testa.
"Natural and acoustic sounds and selected noises, electronically treated and reworked, are integrated in a meditative and spiritual context that often, in the feeling, becomes close to a prayer. Visible static, this music is rich of hidden sounds, layers of elements to discover at each listening. Alio Die's music, in the consciousness space that creates, it's a melting of technology and mysticism, like a new ritual with echoes of a medioeval time, deep and grounded in introspection."
and as this bio is rather limited here's an interview he did in 2008
2008 intervew by Tobias Fischer, he is editor-in-chief of tokafi, publisher of 15 Questions and a cultural editor for Germany's biggest Printmag on Recording, „Beat“.
Hi! How are you? Where are you?
I’m fine, moving at a good point.
What’s your view on the music scene at present? Is there a crisis?
If you mean the music business, yes it is in a kind of crisis... We know the reasons about that, downloads from the internet mainly. Less people buy original cds and more and more people copy. I’s happening to experimental and non commercial music, too, where listener were usually more motivated to buy the real cd. So we see that sales are strongly in decline and lots of shops and distributors have had to close down and cease their activities after many years.
On the other hand, the number of releases is still growing a lot, so the crisis it is not at all on the artistic activity side. With this in mind, I try to optimize the quality of the cd releases with digipack artworks and limited editions of 300 copies. The possibility of getting information quicker and exchange it is a good input to creativity, expecially for people which before lived in a kind of isolation from the rest of the world where they thought the things happened.
What, would you say, are the factors of your creativity? What “inspires” you?
My creativity derives from my special feeling about reality. Perhaps it is that what is forbidden and missing in our dayly life, which inspires me, it is a kind of ‘nostalgic’ feeling in a purified way, without the emotional aspect. I can find inspiration in nature or through observing life itself, or from other music and cultures as well. I’m intersted in disclosing the magic of the present moment in multilayered feelings of a simple complexity. The medicine must work on myself first, but the mixture must be usefull to everybody confronted with that listening experience, so I try to build up something not too personal, and perfectly tuned. I also aim at expressing the circularity of time, to find a point of view that is beyond time.
How would you describe your method of composing?
Taking inspiration from a kind of symbolic language through which I’ve found access to its code, I combine and decorate feelings by different sound elements, then add some random elements born from the present moment.
The process includes improvisation in the sessions with acoustic instruments and objects, but then the sounds are mixed in an accurate way and not so much things are left out.. I let Intuition guide random elements like synchronisation between layers and filters for example. I usually start experimenting with tunings derived from acoustic recordings and field recordings and then treat the sounds in my studio. I also like to sample in a creative way. By this I mean transforming the original source into something different...
How do you see the relationship between sound and composition?
In my music, the qualities of sound and composition are very closely aligned. Some melodical elements are also a part of it, but the more important thing is the right relation between all the ingredients of the music, tunes and vibes coming together to create a new creature ready to work with moods and states of consciousness of the listener.
How strictly do you separate improvising and composing?
Improvisations are usually directed to find a natural feeling that is not yet music, but sometimes it is a ‘controlled’ improvisation by special tunings already decided before. In any case, in the improvisational process I try to capture the feeling of the moment. This is already part of the composition, as it will help to give direction to the entire process of the recordings.
What does the term „new“ mean to you in connection with music?
Something new is something that brings together different elements for the first time, or old elements combined in a new way.
There is nothing new at all, I think usually we transform differents inputs and styles into a new language that come from our personal sensibility and creativity. Creativity must surely be fresh and new everytime, but personally, I like the ancient and the mysterious knowledge that comes from the past, as I don’t belive in any kind of ‘evolution’... In our era, to speak about devolution it actually more correct.
Do you personally enjoy multimedia as an enrichment or do you feel that it is leading away from the essence of what you want to achieve?
I personally enjoy a creative use of new technology. The point is not to agree or disagree with a new way of entertainment, but in the way we use it.
What constitutes a good live performance in your opinion? What’s your approach to performing on stage?
I don’t play live often. This is due to the fact that it is not possible replicating the works I create in the studio in a concert situation. So I tried to adapt some part of acoustical inserts and improvisations with real instruments with the looped electronic effects already embedded into basic sounds. I played live performances few times with Opium and with Zeit on the last two occasions.
I used also a support of a video with beautiful morphings of paintings by Yanusz Gilewicz,and kaleidoscopic mandalas images by Alessandro Vittorio(Ozis) and the results was wonderful.
Do you feel an artist has a certain duty towards anyone but himself? Or to put it differently: Should art have a political/social or any other aspect apart from a personal sensation?
Absolutely. I don’t take care of political/ social matter at all, but in any case I think the muse of art should guide one in some way, giving inspiration to new possibilities in cultural and human aspects. Apart from entertainment, this is a basic meaning and primary reason for music that can build bridges towards different levels of consciousness. If the work of an artist, apart from his originality, is totally disconnected from this important duty, it is totally devoid of any meaning and it is only self-celebratory.
How, would you say, could non-mainstream forms of music reach wider audiences without sacrificing their soul?
In our times there is no risk of becoming too popular with this music or of become commercial- At least not for me... It does happen sometimes with other kinds of ”Ambient” music but still very rarely.
You are given the position of artistic director of a festival. What would be on your program?
Medieval-pagan music like Faun, Daemonia Nimphe, In Gowan Ring for the afternoon, Jack or Jive, Amelia Cuni and Terry Riley, evening and Robert Rich, all night long.
Many artists dream of a “magnum opus”. Do you have a vision of what yours would sound like?
Usually it is the last music released.. But in this case more than usually it is my last album AURA SEMINALIS. You must know that I considered Opus Magnum as the title to this one (I later rejected it for being too obvious..). By the way my Opus magnum will be researched again and looped again later, it is a work still in progress...
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The title is also the opening track of this macroscopic journey into a world which spontaneously engages us when we travel through it. A link between life and earth, a passageway between time andchange. A melodius itinerary in which a time hourglass often makes no sense butonly the sound of articulated and fragmentary notes...50 minutes between a seedand a grain of soil to wander into an infinite space while listening to a faraway earth longing sound. Recorded in Savona Italy august 2002, with different flutes, tubes, accordion, various objects, rattles, shells,bells... Drones and loops, effects,editing and mastering
With its special hand-made package, containing seeds, leaves and other organic material, no two copies are alike. The title "The Sleep of Seeds" is also the opening track of this macroscopic journey into a world which spontaneously engages us when we travel through it... a link between life and earth, a passageway between time and change... an organinc sonic itinerary in which an hourglass often makes no sense, with only the sound of articulated and fragmentary notes... 50 minutes to wander between a seed and a grain of soil, into an infinite space while listening to a far away earth-longing sound. Recorded in Savona Italy August 2002 with various flutes, tubes, accordion, found objects, rattles, shells, bells and drones.
Alio Die n Saffron Wood - The Sleep Of Seeds (flac 194mb)
01 The Sleep of Seeds 22:08
02 Awakening in a New Form 7:14
03 A Dream of Mother Ground 19:34
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
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.
Alio Die n Saffron Wood - Corteggiando Le Mezzi (flac 306mb)
01 Radianza lunare 7:03
02 Cleaning Resonance 15:46
03 Duello con l'incommensurabile 13:06
04 Path in Absence 15:27
05 Corteggiando le messi 8:07
06 Argentea nostalgia 9:59
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Magic has blown its precious spores into 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 comes down from the sky, clear like a crystal. Sometimes 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, its white sea-shores lapped by tepid foamy waters, inebriated with wide floral smells and saltiness in secret inland places and in caves dug from time, on top of the plateau from where it's 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 with a supreme purification owing to millenial percolations across the rocks. 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
Alio Die n Zeit - Sunja (flac 365mb)
01 The Gates Are Open 32:16
02 At The Threshold Of Sunja 47:41
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Tommaso Cimò (Zeit) is back together with Alio Die composing the long flow raga-drone of "Raag Drone Theory" with acoustic sessions recorded in the cloister of the Annunziata in Lunigiana. The warm tones of acoustic dulcimer and zither are mixed with the sound of a shruti-box, while the rest is done by the usual drones & loops dispensed with appropriate measures by the two. From a lineage perspective, this mix of zithers and electronics seems to be quite similar to the music of Laraaji from decades before except where Laraaji's music was more informed by both Brian Eno and contemporary New Age music, Alio Die and Zeit's captures a darker, more exotic and multi-cultural feel. It's a massively long piece at close to 80 minutes, and in that sense veers closer to other long form Alio Die albums like Password for Entheogenic Experience. This is atmospheric music to drift off to, longform waves and drones with drifting zither and psaltery sounds, a microcosm of plucked and bowed strings in a macrocosm of natural and sonic enhancements. It's all beautifully cosmic and relaxing like all the best drifters should be.
Alio Die n Zeit - Raag Drone Theory (flac 334mb)
01 Raag Drone Theory 79:57
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
