SOLYARIS “Mellow Stasis” September 2005 (double CDR)

Mellow Stasis – reduced edition (r.e.)

SolyarisMusic CDR04

Dolce Stasi – edizione ridotta, singolo disco

1. Despair Dissolution, 15:14

2. Frogs Fall from Sky in the Magnolias’ Dales(*), 23:03

3.  Into the Wefts of Ocean Time , 26:19

4.  Dream is Destiny , 15:10

(*) This CDR collect more expressive Mellow Stasis tracks, fitting a single CDR. to fit below listed tracks in 80 minutes I had to cut few seconds of “Frogs Fall from Sky”  intro.

Total time: 79 min. Music compositions, performances and mastering by Giorgio Robino

Used instruments: standard electric guitar, 6 strings electric lap steel guitar, delays.

Remix delivery on February 2006

Mellow Stasis –part  I (original release)

SolyarisMusic CDR 02

Dolce Stasi – parte prima

1. Grandma Death Mysterious Statement , 4:28

         (Misteriosa sentenza di Nonna Morte)

2. Despair Dissolution, 15:14

          (Dissoluzione della disperazione)

3. Don’t Cry Lullaby, 9:20

          (Non piangere ninna nanna)

4. Pain Will Wash Away, Healing Will Commence , 31:51

             (Il tormento verrà spazzato via, la guarigione comincerà)

5. The Sweet Hereafter , 8:22

          (Il dolce domani)

6. Mermaids’ Pretension , 8:32

          (Pretesa della sirena) 

 Mellow Stasis - part II (original release)  

SolyarisMusic CDR 03

Dolce Stasi – parte seconda

1. Frogs Fall from Sky in the Magnolias’ Dales, 24:13

          (Piovono rane dal cielo su distese di Magnolia)

2. Lustful Abandon into the American Beauty , 8:36

          (Sensuale abbandono nella bellezza Americana)

3. Into the Wefts of Ocean Time, 26:19

          (Nelle pieghe del tempo oceanico)

4. Dream is Destiny , 15:10

          (Il sogno è il destino)

5. Peace on Sea , 4:04

          (Pace sul mare)

I love the eerie-ness of your music.  My favorite so far is "Despair Dissolution".  All of your music has a liquid-like flow to it, and I can very easily get carried along on a fluid trance while listening through headphones.  My mind settles down and is placid.  At the same time, there is a dark undertone to your music (I have “Cellardoor” in mind specifically) that leads to an expansion of the music that is very satisfying.  I love all the different textures and flowing "rhythms".  Your use of the guitar as the main paintbrush is inspired (and I have a LOT of ambient/space music in my collection!) and very intelligently applied.  IMO, you are a true musician.

Finally got a decent moment of time to listen to your 2CD "Mellow Statis". Definitely enjoyed this one much morethat your previous album and while the motives on the first disc are quite similar to your first album, the variations are a bit more worked out.Definitely the stronger disc is the 2nd one where you treat your guitar work more detailed which gives the music a more breathing and lively effect.  To me a very good sign how you continue to progress as a musician and composer. Do hope this approach might evolve over time into a strongly condensed and powerful single album.

"Western Detunes" impressed me immediately as guitar music I had been yearning to hear for years and suddenly here it was.  So simple in its seeming complexity, it speaks to me as music untouched by human hands, a music that just "is."  Quite simply, Giorgio's work here sounds written "in the stars," as if it describes some strange, mysterious and beautiful extra-terrestrial sea.  There is a restrained psychedelic intensity to these pieces, much like the feelings evoked by Robert Rich's pioneering lapsteel soundscapes.  T he mood of the album is neither melancholy nor dark, but definitely mysterious and surreal.

"Mellow Stasis" is a decidedly darker, dronier affair, reminding me very much of Robert Rich's "Trances/Drones", not necessarily in the instrumentation but definitely the feel of the music.  This is intense and challenging stuff, not for the faint of heart!  The technique and sound here is similar to "Western Detunes" yet less conventional than that album.  Here the pitch-bended glissandos of "Detunes" start to melt in a swirling, dense mass of sound clusters--pure ambience as opposed to plucked notes filtered through delays.

I highly recommend both these albums to anyone fascinated with the possibilities of modern electric guitar and a love of pure space music.

I found your music very pleasant to listen to and the sounds of the CDs are nice, clean and well balanced. I like it. Keep up with the good work!

Mellow Stasis songs are longer than your first recording, with more of an emphasis on compositions.  You also appear to have more confidence with your sounds, and that is certainly important for any composer- well done!

I listened to the first disc of Mellow Stasis and enjoyed it in terms of being nice background music. The textures reminded me a bit of Robert Rich at times and even Pure the album I released on DiN with Warr touch guitarist Markus Reuter. However I found the pieces didn't really have any structure or form and the use of just the guitar through delays & FX became a bit monotonous. Sure they sound nice but there's more to music composition than just getting a nice sound. I think if you work on this aspect of your music it would be a lot stronger.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to your set.  The music evoked an array of emotions before finally setting a scene in my mind.  The scene possible contradicts the intent of your music based on its title.  My initial feeling was one of relaxation but as the song developed, I began to imagine a situation.  The rhythmic tone of the song set the stage and as it transitioned, so did my emotions.  I began to detect a sense of emotional internal struggle within my vision.  I pictured a wet, cool, fall night with chaos erupting.  One person was outside that scene as if looking in.  The person had been lifted out of the situation yet still a major part of the chaos.  The struggle was the person having to settle the situation.  As the progression went on, it was as if it were the next day and the wind was blowing, disturbing the wind chimes on the front porch of a house in the middle of a field.  As if nothing had happened.  The struggle was over – satisfied.

All in all, each song told me a story.  Not paying any attention to the song titles, I was able to develop a new story with each song.  A wonderful collaboration of touch and tone with very distinct internal sounds that were subtle yet profound to the transition of the music.  The CD was very engulfing - almost hypnotic.  I truly enjoyed it.  At certain points of each song, I felt a rush of adrenaline only to be brought back down with the
soothing oceanic sounds.  Hollowed or echoed.  Beautiful.

In ambient music criticism, one is often tempted to box the work under review into a sub-genre, so that it can be matted, pinned, and placed in some elegant butterfly box of the critic's devising; a curious form of Styrofoam-bordered box in which the critically defined boundaries overwhelm the colorful and delicate wings of the ambient works themselves. Yet ambient pieces are not wikipedia entries, but breathing expressions of artistic vision. When one places the butterfly in the cyanide jar, the wings may be preserved, but the life is drained inexorably.

In "Mellow Stasis", Giorgio Robino, who records as Solyaris, tackles issues of melody and intonation with a style that is more "light" than "dark," more "space" than "tribal," and based on treated guitars rather than merely synthesizers alone. Yet all those defining descriptors fail to convey what it is to listen to Solyaris' work.

Solyaris creates shimmering melodic soundscapes, but they are soundscapes not confined by diatonic scales. He experiments with alternative intonations, with variations from traditional scales, and with a variety of electronica effects devices to achieve an album which is consistently technically interesting.

An album, though, is more than its production values. Rather than give some play by play explanation of perceived audio innovations and imitations, I'd rather describe the experience one gets from listening to "Mellow Stasis." Solyaris creates a work which is consistently quite listenable. The listener has the feel of "sounds rising"—in pitch, in the texture of sounds, and in the progress of each piece. The melodies are all accessible, but not all easy to pin down. In "Despair Dissolution," the sounds are liberating, despite the somberness implied by the title, and yet one can hear the tonal variations which hint at darker things. In my favorite piece, "Frogs Fall from the Sky in the Magnolias' Dales," one gets a sense of transport, as if the piece seeks to take the listener from headphones to heaven.

The array of guitars used in this album builds a wall of sound which makes for a rich, full-textured feel to the album. Although some pieces are long, the work is never boring. There is some repetition of musical ideas among the pieces, but the effect is, overall, one of a series of inter-related pieces rather than of needless repetition. I found less than ideal the way that sounds tend to rise in pitch in some "stairway upward" effect, which I thought might have been leavened with more "movements down," to create a richer palette of sonic choices. Still, I found this album to be of consistently high quality, with solid production values, made by an artist with a sure compositional style.

Solyaris is a good choice for one who wishes ambient work more on the "light/space" side of the spectrum, although he should not be dismissed as merely another "space ambient" guy. This is music with a lightness of touch but a seriousness of purpose. His music will not appeal to all—those who prefer only dark dissonance might be disappointed in the somewhat more formalistic and fundamentally "light," modest tonal experiments underpinning this work. For me, though, the test is a simpler one—I enjoy putting Solyaris into the CD player, because the melodies he writes are interesting and not trite. On a Wednesday night before a business trip, that seems to me to be an accomplishment indeed.

I listened to “Mellow Stasis” last week and enjoyed it. I must say, however, that I feel your music would benefit from more compositional structure. The mood is excellent, and the guitar creates a nice texture. The slide guitar throughout the music does get a bit monotonous though, although perhaps that was your intention. Overall, it was a good follow-up to your previous work. I wish you much success.

A Saturday morning, finally free from wife, children, dog and all bonds we impose to our self, I listened two “Mellow Stasis” CDs in sequence. Maybe I wrong to have listened in the morning, maybe could be better to listen as prelude and continuation of the trip in the sleep.

At first glimpse I can say that both CDs transpire clearly different feeling between first and second CD.

Are both living and this is not a trivial point; the being with his tow faces, the death and the live , both warm conditions, , a sense of suspension and intentional oblivion, an abandon to the pleasure in infinite cosmic thoughts, these the basic scents that I felt from the sounds. “Pain will wash away, the healing will commence”, “The sweet hereafter”, “Frog fall from sky”, ”Into the weft of ocean time”, “Dream is destiny”, “Peace on sea”. Beautiful pieces, beautiful pieces. Congratulations! A great work! 

But if just after you go back to the stress and everyday “technical times”, this music make you feel bad and this happened to me.

Un sabato mattina per caso son riuscito, libero da moglie,figli ,cane e tutte le altre costrizioni che c’imponiamo, ad infilare i due CDs di Mellow Stasis uno dopo l'altro. Si, me li sono sparati uno dietro all’altro  così come credo si faccia con qualche sostanza psicoattiva. Forse ho sbagliato ad ascoltarli la mattina dalle dieci in poi, sarebbe meglio sentirli come preludio ad una continuazione del viaggio nel sonno.

Di getto posso dirti che trapelano chiaramente dei diversi stati d’adimo tra primo e secondo CD.

Sono vivi entrambi e questo è già molto; l’essere con le sue due facce, la morte e la vita , calde entrambe ,un senso di sospensione e voluto oblio, un’abbandono al piacere in pensieri infiniti,cosmici, questi i sentori di fondo che dai suoni ho sentito. “Pain will wash away, the healing will commence”, “The sweet hereafter”, “Frog fall from sky”, ”Into the weftof ocean time”, “Dream is destiny”, “Peace on sea”: belle, belle. Complimenti, un gran lavoro!

Ma se subito dopo ti getti  nella frenesia e nei tempi tecnici, ti fa star male e ti può prender mal di stomaco, così è accaduto a me.

Music on first disc convey a mellow suffering, a confused way through a tunnel of adverse clouds, but with sapaces of light.

On second disc, first three tunes really express a “mellow stasis" of serenity, specifically on track "into the wefts of ocean time" there is a stimulus to renew, a consciousness reawakening, continuing in "Dream is destiny" and "peace on sea", where sounds become fresh, inspiring tenderly and love: heart miss a beat. Really wonderful!

La musica del primo disco trasmette una dolce sofferenza, un cammino confuso attraverso un tunnel di nuvole ostili, ma con spazi di luce.

Nel secondo disco, i primi tre brani esprimono veramente una "dolce stasi" di serenità, in particolare nel brano "nelle pieghe del tempo oceanico" c'è uno stimolo al rinnovarsi, un risveglio dell'anima che continua in "Il sogno è il destino" e "pace sul mare", dove i suoni sono feschi, ispirano tenerezza ed amore: un tocco al cuore. Molto bello!

I've enjoyed listening to your CD very much.  The recording quality is very good -- you get a great sound, and I like your ideas.  I remember listening to one of the tunes, I think it was the first one on Mellow Stasis and at first I found myself thinking how beautiful, almost "sweet" it sounded, but then it started getting busier, and I felt like if I died and went into "bardo" (which for the Tibetan Buddhists is the space between death and rebirth), this is what it would be like -- somewhat confusing in that you have to keep your wits about you or you are lost.  I'm not sure I'm expressing this very well, but it is a deep compliment. Thank you again for the wonderful music

No stranger to microtonal movements and non-western tunings, this artist builds aural movements using a lap-steel guitar and an electric guitar, which are then processed through delays and layering. Check out this material - performed, mixed down and mastered by Giorgio Robino.

I reviewed Mellow Stasis previously on Giorgio's Web Site so I won't repeat my words here except to say that this work is remarkable!  Get it!

It is neither "mellow" nor "static;" Harry is absolutely on the money when he says that it may take a little more time to "get into" than Western Detunes, but is is very much worth the effort. Yes, it is more orchestral, more choral, more blissful. Check out the longest tracks, (about a half hour each,) "Pain Will Wash Away, Healing Will Commence" and "Dream Is Destiny." While I hear Windy & Carl, Evening Star era Fripp and Eno, and the acoustic works on John McLaughlin's My Goals Beyond as precedent, Mellow Stasis is a monumental musical work, an incredible statement on the guitar, and the CDs are copious as well (one CD is 76 minutes, the other 78.)

 
This work also reminds me of the post A Love Supreme era in jazz about forty years ago, when many serious jazz players were calling on their respective faiths to produce the inspiration for what they thought would be their defining moments. Not to take the analogy TOO FAR, but there was only one Coltrane, one A Love Supreme, (although I adore Pharoah Sanders "Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord" from the same period,) and there is only one Mellow Stasis.

The pricing policy is designed to get this work into the hands of as many listeners as possible, and I personally urge everybody to get a copy, not because Giorgio is a friend, but because you will be missing something significant if you don't take advantage and purchase a copy of Mellow Stasis for yourself. It's REALLY that good.

Solyaris' latest release Mellow Stasis is a very different collection of musical pieces than his previous Western Detunes.  Western Detunes is a more rhythmic and detailed body of work, with a bed of looped electric guitar topped by the soaring lap steel melodies.

Mellow Stasis is a much deeper release and requires a little more work on the part of the listener to get into. The end result is well worth the effort. Solyaris use a much more chordal approach on this effort. There is no noticeable key or meter on these pieces just a blissful floating feel that suspends time. In many ways, this work is like a broad brush stroked watercolor. It is music that is easy to get lost in.

I have listened to this 2 cd collection several times, and find different things to enjoy each time. Mellow Stasis is an impressive body of work from an artist I feel we will be hearing quite a bit from in the future.

In painting, there is realism and impressionism. In music, there is no such distinction, but there are other 'genres', often useless terms. Visual arts are concrete; music is virtual. In reflecting on Giorgio Robino's Mellow Stasis, a work of some length and depth, I'm wondering how to classify it, in a way that would be a helpful introduction. It may be that it fits in the 'ambient' category, but that is as general a term as 'impressionistic.'

Giorgio doesn't compose so much in keys as in atmospheres. They are indeed impressions, as lent by their titles. But unlike a painting, you don't sit outside it and view. You are in the tone painting. If it is raining frogs, you are in the rain. If it is a seascape, it is one from within the sea. You may become wet with the sound, as you are awash in it.  It is almost a genre of its own--'sol' y 'aris'--sun and air? Atmospheres--places you live in.  

Enjoy this experience. It is not past or future; it is present, and it is unique.

About Mellow Stasis composition approach:

When recording this work, I performed on 6 strings lap-steel guitar and electric guitar, with the same approach initially used on first CD Western Detunes, using guitar (highly echoed with delays) for sketch the carrying idea of a piece and so adding chirping melodies on slide guitars; no more than few overdubbed tracks for a piece. But I was not satisfied by the initial resulting sound (that in fact Robert Rich defined “live/looping format” on Western Detunes listening), so I experimented more with layering, starting to think about orchestration of many interlacing parts.

A bit for laziness, a bit for planned approach on compositions, I used mainly what I call “auto-correlation” layering, meaning to link together and to joints previously recorded parts (or “blocks”), performed in a kind of overdubbing performances where I “copied lines already recorded”; in that way I discovered a cloudy messy sound that I could define as “a choral orchestration made by unfit, detuned lame homunculus that are copying each other". These sounds sometime achieve stormy sea and windy atmospheres, sometime are only ruffling and rippling water, sometime are only oceanic calm. In fact the Mellow Stasis sound is really related to the sea, covering all sea’ status, form the storm to the absolute smooth, passing through choppy tides with dynamic floodtides.

About the “consciousness evolution” awareness:

I thought Mellow Stasis pieces as a kind of narration of feelings’ metamorphosis, where emotions pass from an initial bad or anyway messy (human) context, to finally achieving the peaceful comprehension of something that transcend the day by day meanness, achieving a superior consciousness status or, at least, a spiritual mellow stasis (see Atom Egoyan movies). The evolution from the bad to the good is a process not so automatic and repeatable and sometime didn’t happen in the album; but the interesting point is to describe that passage as a consciousness status that is never “black and white” (static) but hopefully changing in  mysterious mutant colors (that every “living being” may experience and show).

About “fighting time”, with looping and time shifting delays:

The use of delays is not “adding an esthetic effect” to electric guitar sound; instead massive echoing is my strategic technique (initially unwitting for me) to fight the illusion of time stressing (not only in a strict musical sense). I hate “beat” because the metronomic scan is just a violent remind of an imposed time conception. What I’m looking for is to overtake the space-time illusions to instead represent a more free musical vision out from any obliged chronographic schema, with the aim to try to achieve music as dream’s soundtrack. Using my friend Alan Fontana’s metaphor, the use of delays and time shifts is a medium to go into the “wefts of time”.

Sometimes I used the same loops in multiple pieces of Mellow Stasis; as usual this is a bit for (recording) economy (I performed all recording by myself) but mainly as a desired narrative approach; I consider loops (short cycle of performance looped in a repeating cycle), long performed tracks; delayed blocks, tracks, are all “thoughts” or if you prefer the orchestral metaphor, these are “parts”, that I used as reusable module composing one or more piece. This is not only a choice of convenience, but mainly a substantial point: every piece of the album is a representation of a summa of micro-thoughts that achieve, in a “choral ensemble”, the entire consciousness status (the composition); so it’s possible that a re-combination of thought may generate a different piece.  

About not-so-much “just intonations”, “glurps & shimmers”:

Robert Rich is one of my preferred musicians for some reasons, among them the incredible “mermaid’s” sound of his lap steel guitar, for his theory of “glurp &shimmer” and last but not least his use of “just intonations” tunings; all that is marvelously implemented in his Trance & Drones album, that remain the masterpiece in hypnotic ambient music realms. I have been very attracted by just intonation just after understood from his music the difference from equal tempered western tuning system. I’m not technically able to use any just intonation with a systematic musical method approach, but I realized that playing slide guitar (where you are freedom to do not respect the 12 notes temperament), I tend to do not respect the perfect tempered tuning, maybe I’m simply out-of-tune cause my musical ears incapacity, or maybe it’s because I naturally like bit-detuned (microtonal) melody lines, especially if used in a chorus / choral way, where a sum of bit detuned melodies arise to a sort of melody “chord” that go in and out the “carrier” tuning. Anyway I could suppose that all above is only my big theory to justify that my music is methodically out of tune or “detuned” to be kind.

Finally I think that there is in Mellow Stasis the glurp & shimmer conception, where I use a sort of magnifying glass that sometime extract a part from the mesmeric soup (generally the guitar arpeggios architectures); anyway in general the global sound is composed by a glurp where sparkling & shining notes come out sometime and somewhere.

About guitar processing techniques:

Jeff Pearce, Carl Hultgren and Chas Smith are artists I absolutely love and I tried to reproduce their beautiful lush synthlike textures, with poor results indeed (maybe also because my lack of needed instrumentation); anyway, trying to copy their approach using delays & layering, I discovered interesting sounds I like and I could name “a sort of detuned choral guitar ensemble”.

Joking relationship between Mellow Stasis pieces and musicians I love:

“The sweet hereafter” is an explicit tribute to Windy & Carl music, “Into the wefts of ocean time” ” is a tribute to Robert Rich, “Pain will wash away, healing will commence” is a tribute to Robert Fripp, “Peace on sea” is a tribute to David Gilmour, and last but not least “Dream is destiny” is my tribute to Chas Smith.

When recording the album I listened music by: Alice Turyia Coltrane, Robert Rich, Windy & Carl, Chas Smith, Jeff Pearce, Susan Alcorn, Stars Of The Lid, Pink Floyd, Popol Vuh, David Tollefson, Robert Fripp, Michael Brook, Ralph Towner, Michael Nymann, Suso Saiz, Steve Roach, Jim Cole, Ravi Shankar, Debashish Bhattacharya, N. Ravikiran, Mathias Grassow, Vidna Obmana, Gopal Shankar Misra, Shakti Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, Bjork, Flora Purim, John Coltrane.

Joking relationship between Mellow Stasis pieces and movies:

Many pieces are a reference to movie I love, and you can guess easily from the titles: “Grandma death mysterious statement” is dedicated to Donnie Darko, “Despair Dissolution” to Twin Peaks: the fire walk with me “Pain will wash away, healing will commence” to Felicia’s Journey, “Into the wefts of ocean time” to Tarkovkij’s Solyaris, “Frog fall from sky” to Magnolia, “Dream is destiny” to Waking life.

Thanks and dedications:

I thank my friends: Gordon Danis (first Solyaris estimator!), Harry Dibrell (my Texan electronics devices friend!), Charlie McDonald (the “impressionistic steel composer” friend), Luca Bernava (friend of me and Roberto and my first reviewer).

This album is dedicated to the memory of my friend Roberto Minniti, and his hope of a hippie happy lifestyle.

Giorgio Robino, 15 August 2005