Green House Music - Reviews: Antonio Testa > < Alio Die

Antonio Testa > < Alio Die - Prayer For The Forest

GHM.02.01
Released 2002

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Twilight Zone - Francesco Gentile (c) 2002

Antonio Testa and Stefano Musso give life to their trance-ambient glorification, letting blow this iridescent album composed of 6 very long visionary and oniric tracks from emerald rains. A true psychologic and evocative trip, characterized by constant meltings of monsoon reflections and of dawns from Amazon, photograms captured and developed with descriptive extreme care and executive accuracy. The melodies are beaten by careful and changeable percussions, radiated by filmy synths, enriched by noises and rustles, surreal flutes, electronic water toys, intruguing loops, living vegetation rules the winding atmospheres of "African Dream" between tribal percussions and clear keyboards in suspension. In the wide natural aviary of "A mechanical dust sphere", we look at light bi-evolutions and around crackling rhythms. Fires on not being found waterfalls overhang the inside parts "Ancestor's Breath", distant percussions and invisible rituals gush out from Rain Forest's bowels. Native voices and daily life scenes of the forest, are evocated by "Walking through the camp", harmony and simplicity catch the listening. Tribal beats and progressive sideral infiltrations diffuse several incenses in the heart of "Prayer for the forest", every perception is stimulated under a huge sonic dome, which stripings are made of chlorophyll and heavenly feathers. "An active Foggy Pathway" closes the album, inspired by spotted percussions and iridescent flashes, which are lost among mysterious testimonies let in the rock. The aura exhalations of the Supreme Green Spirit, moderator force and nurse soul for all of us.

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Sonic Curiosity - Matt Howarth (c) 2002

This 2002 release features 54 minutes of environmental ambient music generated by Antonio Testa and Alio Die (aka Stefano Musso).

Combining Testa's percussion and flute with Musso's electronic textures and drones, this collaboration successfully seeks to capture the heart of the green and convey it in atmospheric soundscapes. Wrought with softly tribal rhythms, synthetic ambience fills the air, creating sonic images of great trees swaying overhead, blocking the sky with their spread leafery. Electronic winds trickle through the shrubbery, sending each frond and clump of hanging moss twirling to tell their tales. Sedate peace and organic coexistence dominate this music, brooding without remorse or condemnation. The forest breathes and opens a pathway for the entranced audience, welcoming and full of grandeur. Holistic ambience unfurls its languid tongues, enticing with fogged tendrils and stately with unobtrusive harmonics. This passive tuneage stirs the soul, reaching deep into mankind's racial memory, recalling a time when man and forest shared the same hopes and dreams.

Evoking woodland spirits with electronic instruments, this music is a modern testament to the reverence deserved by the plant world.

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SoundVision - TJ Norris (c) 2002

Ambient rainforests and native drums - this could be a pathway to the soul. In follow-up to their "Healing Herb's Spirit" release (Crowd Control Activities) Italian multi-instrumentalists Antonio Testa and Alio Die (Stefano Musso) have made a recording of spirited release. The six tracks here merge fluidly into one another and massage your brain for just about an hour. Prayer for the Forest works its spiritual, tribal ways in the droning "A Mechanical Dust Sphere". One pictures a deep, lush Costa Rican forest in pitch darkness except for a distant, almost neon vibrant path of silhouetted shapes. Samples and environmental recordings showcase the underbelly of "Ancestor's Breath", a methodical track taking very slow steps towards its end. The cinematic air to this disc is quiet and dark, prowling through your subconscious.

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AmbiEntrance - David Opdyke (c) 2002

Antonio Testa & Alio Die loosely fashion new audio-organic environments for your mind to explore. My tired old synapses tend to wander an alien jungle when I hear Prayer for the Forest, but what's a jungle but another variety of forestation.

Lush, hovering tonestreams flow through, around and above the crickets, phantom flutes and thumping drumbeats of 10-minute intro, African Dream. Murkier expanses gust from the boiling plains of A Mechanical Dustsphere, where faint rhythms are buried beneath the lighter-than-air strands which emerge from the haze... spooky and beautiful becomes rhythmic and pulsing. Slow beats and breeze-stirred chimes accent the subtle, shadow-dappled floes of Ancestor's Breath.

While Walking Through The Camp (5:32), mutedly clunky tones, and faraway (pygmy children?) voices are heard in the hazy distance. Quietly murmuring media voices are swallowed by the sheen and swirl of Prayer For The Forest with its low-tempo thumps and insect calls. Reverberant waterdrums stroll purposefully through the wafting vapors of An Active Foggy Pathway (17:06); off-kilter bongs seep into the surrounding fog and fauna, all of which eventually slows and spreads to conclusive nothingness.

Discover your own sonic ecosystem, and see what grows there; when cradled in the atmospheric conditions of fertile Prayer for the Forest, something interesting is bound to bloom in these 54 minutes. Antonio Testa & Alio Die generate enticingly unspoiled environs, complete with their own weather, humidity and grit. While sometimes percussive, these soundscenes are generally very placid, lulling me to sleep on many nights. A.

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Ambient Visions - Caleb Deupree (c) 2002

Antonio Testa and Alio Die's followup to their 1999 Crowd Control Activities release "Healing Herb's Spirit" presents another program of mystical textures and reverberant atmospherics. The new release is calmer than the first, befitting the luxuriant jungle overtones of the cover art, and focussing on the primeval sounds of the native American forest. The flute melodies of the first release are more submerged here, showing up only as distant echoes in the drifting wind sounds of A Mechanical Dustsphere. There are also fewer voice samples, audible only in the nearly subliminal prayer of the title track and the general camp sound field recordings in Walking through the Camp. Instead, the textures have become more nebulous, with slow drum loops forming the background for resonant percussive gestures and billowing, slow-moving electronic drones.

The languid percussion loops inspire the calm retrospective glance at the ancient forest, visible through the dreamscape superbly represented on the opening track. Crickets and a peaceful drone give way to distant melodies barely audible beneath a wash of sound, before the opening tranquil beats and brighter electronics signal the beginning of the new day. Crickets also accompany the murmured Prayer for the Forest, merging into a loping triple drum loop. The long final track, An Active Foggy Pathway, starts slowly with sustained bell sounds, similar to a gamelan, then a series of alternating rhythms that lead the listener through a final introspective musical tour. With its quiet ambience and gentle percussion loops, Prayer for the Forest is well suited for late night listening, reading or studying, and is an excellent followup to their first release.

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Sequences Magazine - Phil Derby (c) 2002

Prayer for the Forest is like a cool refreshing breeze on a hot summer day. Serene and soothing, this is wonderful ethereal ambience. Soft tribal influences meld into lots of cool floating music. You can almost feel your blood pressure drop as tension melts away. Ideal for curling up on the couch for an evening read, yet equally suitable for focused meditation, or a relaxed way to start your morning. In other words, this is one of those perfect discs that easily adapts itself to whatever you are doing or feeling at that moment. It epitomizes Brian Eno's definition of ambient music, in that it is comfortable either being completely in the background, or being listened to attentively. Now as to describing the music itself, where to start? The tribal bleats and crickets of "African Dream?" The flutes and soft static of "A mechanical dust sphere?" The slow, deep, plodding beats and primitive sounds of "Ancestor's breath?" It all sounds so good, each track hitting just the right moods and combining just the right elements before moving on to the next. It all feels very organic and spontaneous, and yet somehow elegant to the point of near perfection. A foreign conversation or monologue begins the title track, then shimmering metallic sounds, then tribal percussion, as future meets past, as electronic meets old world instruments. The crickets return, as does the monologue, the other sounds fading into the distance. "An active foggy pathway" has many primitive elements, including what I'd swear is someone popping their hands over glass bottles. It reminds me of Loren Nerell's gamelan-influenced music. Soft bells and meandering percussion continue throughout. It seems almost aimless, and yet knows exactly where it's going. Highly recommended.

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