Mesmeric Revelation (1998)

5000 Spirits is drone manipulator Alio Die's collaboration with Raffaele Serra. Together they craft a subtle, melodic study of mesmeric proportions, with a resounding 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 night extinguished 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