Eleusian Lullaby

Alio Die

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 29, 2008)
• Original Release Date: January 29, 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: ZAPPA RECORDS
• ASIN: B0010V4TKU
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #384,937 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Eleusian Lullaby is a sensual ethereal-ambient collaboration between Italian soundsculptor Stefano Musso (aka Alio Die) and Italian singer Martina Galvagni. It is the third release in Projekt's series of Alio Die's vocal collaborations following 2001's Apsaras (with Amelia Cuni) and 2005's Mei-Jyu (with Jack or Jive).

Eleusian Lullaby blends the natural, warm and earthy ambient compositions of Alio Die with the elegant, neo-classical voice of Martina, merging notes and silence into an expanded dreamscape. This is lullaby music like an aural caress from darkness into the light. The combination of the vocal melodies with the abstract qualities of the loops and instruments creates a suspended near-dream space, intimate and sensual at the same time.

The opening track, 'The Oniroid Sleep,' displays a foggy atmosphere where the voices wash beneath the acoustic layers of the cithara, sitar, kalimba and field recordings. On the second track, 'A Drone Song for Alienor,' the voice is clearer and more upfront with all its powerful beauty apparent creating an intense and fragile song with a neo-classical approach. The third song, 'Eleusian Lullaby,' was created as a totally free improvisation of psaltery and voice; the text is sung in a dialect of the Engadina language (Switzerland). Drones and loops were added later from the original recordings.

60 minutes of music, composed by acoustical improvisations with voice, psaltery, zither, cithara, bells, metals and field recordings. The original recordings were made in locations in the woods and in ancient medieval places then processed and layered by Alio Die at Temple Studio in 2005-2006.

Listen to this trance music in the dark and be lead to a tranquil earthly garden. Like in the best lullabies, you are caressed as you are transported to a mysterious parallel soundworld of peace and harmony.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars MAYBE, MAYBE NOT, February 23, 2009

By	Kerry Leimer (Makawao, Hawaii United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Largely pelagic, the three pieces that comprise Eleusian Lullaby are suffused with slowly moving timbral shifts occurring inside an amoebic suspension of sources that now and then yield up a sustained female voice, a demure kalimba stroke, field recordings and other acoustic amorphousness. Tranquil and lush, the elements disassemble and congeal with lava-lamp predictability. The tonal style seems to have one foot firmly planted in the sadly imagined jazz-inflected music of alien cultures one repeatedly encounters scattered through the galaxies visited during the original Star Trek series, the other seeking purchase in the deep, soft banks of rehearsal outs by Dead Can Dance. The temptation would be to compare these three long pieces to the still growing catalog of drone music, but it really doesn't belong there. The music here is usually built on a ground, not unlike many examples of Early Music. But unlike Early Music, there is a profound sense of self-indulgence shaping the compositions, seemingly very organic and perhaps partly improvised. Sustain and drone are technically different ideas and, Eleusian Lullaby shows no indication of either the restraint or minimalism of drone work, opting for an unadulterated and consonant sentimentalism, one that seems headed for a life-long addiction to sedatives. What's the best boat to set out in? At the risk of offending Arthur Rimbaud, probably a drunken one.