‘Along the vast ancient river’ new EP by Aglaia in Peaceful Radio Show 1540
4 May 2023 Artists
The pools of meditative electro-acoustic music on Italian sound-artist Aglaia’s second Projekt release are imbued with calming warmth, enchanting subtlety and shimmering mystery. The electronic sound is the wave, and the acoustic sound is the rippling of the wave catching the sparkle of light. With the shortest of the four pieces clocking in at nearly a quarter-hour, Along the vast ancient river is the 72nd album from Gino Fioravanti’s Aglaia, including many with compatriot Alio Die.
“As I submerged myself in listening,” Gino reflects, “I immediately felt a force similar to that of an ancient river filling the space in my room. The glittering of the acoustic notes like the light reflected on the watery crests highlight different sounds, different points of view, as different moods arise. In that moment, the river, the man and the music recognize each other and exchange knowledge. The delta of the river is a place that becomes a microcosm. Not ethereal, but living in organic ferment. Its elements are memories that transform into vegetation and animals, curves, eddies and currents.”
Throughout, a meditative consciousness takes hold, full of impressions, sensations, emotions. It carries with it a sense of purification (samskaras.) We can sail or swim, contemplate or stroll along its shores. It can be autumn. It may be morning, afternoon or evening, night. The water sounds, the wind sounds. The weather plays.
Gino describes the four tracks:
In track one
The acoustic sound is indistinct, without a center. I treated it differently from how sound was used on my previous album, Perennial source. The acoustic and electronic dimensions merge as if they were one stream, rippling, indistinct. The electronic sound is the wave, and the acoustic sound is the rippling of the wave catching the sparkle of light.
In track two
The eye and the ear turn elsewhere. The river becomes a mirror. Music becomes a mirror. It is not the pure soul that is mirrored. It is the melancholy soul that wants to turn memory into gold dust.
In track three
The river speaks of itself. Consciousness is discovered in multiple dimensions. One glides observing the river from above. Everything then changes. Emotion becomes awe, silence is created, warm wind. Sound wings, birds dwelling on the river. Sounds that enter the white clouds.
In track four
The mechanical repetition of acoustic sound tells us of the natural law that lives without interruption in its own mystery. In a sensory objectivity. Reverberations. Transparencies. Life is filtered. It is made poetically mechanical.
Track Listing
01 Sailing clouds
02 The left bank of the river
03 Autumn drift
04 Birth of a transparent heart
Benno Veugen Aglaia, Gino Fioravanti, Peaceful Radio, Peaceful Radio Show