UNDER AN HOLY RITUAL

What a way to start a discography! "Under an Holy Ritual", Alio Die's first release ,(as far as PA and I know), is straight forward focused, diverse, masterful and unique. But above all this, it does not resemble or even worst, fake or copy no one's musical language. Some reviewers may be forced to come up with the inevitable comparissons (some, quiet far-fetched by the way), but I suppose it has to do with the tempting desire, to explain, the unexplainable (the power of music, in fact).

To "explain" his music in generalities, let us assume this is an "Electronic/Ambient" project , with the results of experimentation, but not the process of it. This musicians displays in this, his first release, perfectly crafted and written songs. Diverse and unique in his personal musical language, which turns out to be enormous. Of course this is not fast paced music (which explains the crowd), it is "Slow Music" as such.

Evidently it is electronically and acoustically generated, with the usual intention, as with many electronic works, to fusion "real life" sounds with electronic ones. With the knowledge, of course that all this has been happening since day one in this Prog sub-genre. So, it will be unwise, not to notice that, those "resources" in Alio Die's music have already been more than "tasted" and "digested".

Alio Die's music witholds experimentation in favour of composition, without losing a drop of inspiration. That alone sets him apart in this field. Add up to that, his musical-language from the very beginning is identifiable, small feat, in a world of invisible structures, as "Ambient music" usually is, to be in fact, be called "Ambient". Anyway, "Under an Holy Ritual" is a masterful display of diverse slow-paced instrumental compositions, that besides not being connected with each other, each one offers a wide scope of approaches by themselves. in both performance and "minimalistic" arrangements. And best of all, it is full with originality and creaivity in its songwriting. I could not think of a better way to know Alio Die's music, thant this, his first project.

****4.5 PA stars. What else can I say. Superb!