CD/LP, Hic Sunt Leones, 2010
www.aliodie.com / www.parallel-worlds-music.com
On “Circo Divino” the Greek Bakis Sirros (Parallel Worlds) and Italian Stefano Musso – who we know better than Alio Die – takes us on a journey through a clash of cultures. Whereas we know Alio Die mostly from his ethnic ethereal ambient soundscapes, the two decided on incorporating those sounds with the modular synthetic sounds for which Bakis Sirros is known.
Pictures of the journey are depicted in six tracks, within which you travel from Greece to Italy in under an hour; or maybe it’s a journey from an Arabian sunset to the factory outside town.
This one is quite hard to describe. In ethnic ambient there are just a few names which are far above everyone else, and Stefano Musso is one of them. And even though I hadn’t heard his name before, my peers guarantee that Bakis Sirros is an absolute master when it comes to modular synthesis.
The album as a whole is very good, albeit in the genre of ethnic ritual ambience. For my personal taste the electronic sounds either got lost in the mix (which would be a shame) or they sound so amazingly organic that I can’t tell the difference.
The grading would be 70 in the first case, 90 in the latter. For now 80/100 will emphasize its class.
[8/10]
— Bauke van der Wal