Italian muse of chaos Alos to release new avant-concept album »Embrace The Darkness« on November 25th via Dio Drone / Archaeological Records!

Italian muse of chaos, musician and performer Alos aka Stefania Pedretti (from the legendary post-metal band OvO) will release new avant-concept album »Embrace The Darkness« on November 25th, 2023 via Dio Drone / Archaeological Records.

Watch a music video for the first single and title track »Embrace The Darkness« below!

Stefania Pedretti comments: “After the nice preview on CVLT Nation, my new videoclip »Embrace The Darkness« directed by Giulio Di Mauro and filmed in Stromboli, officially arrives on YouTube. Take a little break and enjoy your viewing!”

Courtesy of Digipur:

The new concept album »Embrace The Darkness« by Italian muse of chaos Alos will be released on November 25th, 2023 via Dio Drone and Archaelogical Records, dedicated to the island of Stromboli and its volcano, with a 36-page book printed by the publisher Occulto; watch the title track’s brand new video

Twenty years after her apparition as artistic identity, Alos has completed her most intimate and complex project: »Embrace The Darkness«.

Since the very beginning, Alos – aka Stefania Pedretti, co-founder of the noise duo OvO with Bruno Dorella, of the Allun collective with Natalia Saurin, and involved in collaborations with artists such as Kawabata Makoto, Alan Dubin, Colin H. van Eeckhout, Xabier Iriondo, Bugo, and Baby Dee – has been active in the interstitial space between underground culture and contemporary arts.

Photos by Giulio di Mauro

Over the years, her performances have enriched the most avantgarde sides of the cultural scene of Milan, Berlin, Bruxelles, Paris, Shenzhen, New York and many other cities. During 2021, Stefania Alos Pedretti went through the darkness, first struggling with serious illness, then going through a hard physical rehabilitation involving also the recovery of her lost voice.

Only six months after a long hospitalization, the idea of elaborating the experience with a performance was born. The volcano emerged as the chosen symbolic system to create a synthesis and a narration before and beyond the human, tracing a path that could lead from darkness to light. In June 2022, the invitation by the dance festival Marosi in Stromboli promptly enabled the incubation of the new vision on the slopes of the most active Italian volcano, and the development of a practice-based artistic research that was also a healing journey: »Ritual II – Embrace The Darkness«.

»Embrace The Darkness« is a new land emerging from the collision of matter, a fertile and overwhelming experience for all its participants, audience included. One year after the residency in Stromboli, and having already presented the ritual on several occasions (Marosi Festival in Stromboli, Lenz Foundation in Parma, Teatro Rasi in Ravenna), Alos has further expanded the research into an edition that combines sound, visuals, and texts, and consists of a 12-inch vinyl record and of an artist’s book. Printed in 300 copies, it’s co-produced by three independent realities that got together for the very first time: the labels Dio Drone and Archaeological Records, and the german publisher Occulto. While the primary experience is the performance itself, where Alos acts in an immersive space created by the video shot on location during the recordings, the narration of the experience lives and grows further in the edition.

All sounds in the record, both acoustic or electronic, were registered live by Marcello Batelli in various, mainly natural locations on the Stromboli island, like Sciara del Fuoco and the cave of Aeolus. Batelli’s work with sound donates outstanding depth and life to the first claustrophobic, then liberatory atmospheres created by Alos’ on-site performance using vocals, modular synthesizers, artistic glass objects, bells and volcanic stones.

The artist’s book is the visual counterpart of the record, featuring photos and videostills shot by Giulio di Mauro (also director of the title track’s videoclip filmed always in Stromboli), and expands the narration in a polyphonic direction thanks to text contributes by Marcello Batelli, Francesca R.Y.F. Morello, Alice Cannavà, Giulio Di Mauro, and Naresh Ran among others. The release date of the »Embrace The Darkness« edition is November 25th, 2023, the 680th anniversary of a tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption in Stromboli in 1343.

Alos lived in Milan, Berlin and Ravenna where she still lives today. Musician, performer and artist active since 1998. With her bands (OvO, Allun), she has played more than one thousand concerts (Europe, United States, Canada, Russia, China, Vietnam). In 2015 and 2016 she collaborated with the theatrical director Markus Öhrn in the Azdora project. From 2017 to 2019 collaborated with Santarcangelo Festival as a music curator together with Francesca R.Y.F. Morello. Alos project began in 2003: its central element is live performance reread every time through a different performative key imagined ad hoc for the specific object of research. Her queer-pagan-doom-avant-metal work transcends the borders between performance art by integrating experimental music, performance, improvisation, figurative art, installations and video art with the objective of actively involving the audience in a performance capable of creating a strong sensorial experience.

Pre-order it here:
diodrone.bandcamp.com
archaeologicalrecords1.bandcamp.com

“A timeless glimpse into the artistic sphere of Alos. It allows you to listen and look through her lense, her senses. And ultimately feel what Stromboli’s nature was trying to tell her. Be it a cave, or vulcano, Alos is the ultimate vehicle to take you out of yourself and into that other essential being. The last years have made her see and unsee the depths of life, and she has her story to tell. The world and we, as witnesses, are blessed with the presence of the archaic motherartist and modern witch that she is. She has our story to tell. »Embrace The Darkness« and worship the Light” – CHVE (Amenra)

“This is not a project about a volcano, this is about being the volcano” – Naresh Ran (Dio Drone)

“I know Stefania since Allun times. »Embrace The Darkness« is her most mature and deep work. Thank you Ste, your artistic path deep and unique gave us another treasure” – Xabier Iriondo (Afterhours, Buñuel, Six Minute War Madness, A Short Apnea and many more)

“It is empowering to hear her voice today, it is a meditation that goes beyond the record and through the photos and texts” – Leah Buckareff (Nadja, Psychedelic Choir, Pulp Paper)

Credits:

Alos: vocals, modular synthesizers, artistic glass objects, bells and volcanic stones.

Performed live by Alos aka Stefania Pedretti in various locations in Stromboli (Italy), during an artist residency at Marosi 2022.
Recordings and mixing by Marcello Batelli.
Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi.

12-inch vinyl record: Photography and visuals by Giulio Di Mauro. Illustrations by Gio Pistone.
Layout by Naresh Ran. Released by Dio Drone and Archaeological RecordsS, 2023.

Artist’s book: 36 pages / English. Photos by Giulio Di Mauro. Illustrations by Gio Pistone.
Texts by Stefania Alos Pedretti, Naresh Ran, Klaus Miser, Marcello Batelli, Giulia Ferrato, Giulio di Mauro, Francesca R.Y.F. Morello, Alice Cannavà. Designed and edited by Alice Cannavà. Published by Occulto.

“Everything – the light, the dark, the beauty, the pain – is perfect just as it is”.

Rituals and album presentations:
25 – 26.11 Milano (IT), Sprint Art Book Fair
09.12 Macerata (IT), Circolo Dong
13.12 Ravenna (IT), Magazzeno Arte Contemporanea

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well