Metrodora

Demetrio Stratos' first solo recording after leaving the Italian progressive rock group Area, which he founded, finds him exploring the frontiers of vocal exploration. Stratos attempts, over these seven selections, to pack everything he had discovered about the limits of the human voice and to try to dissemble them, one utterance at a time. Hence the three "Segmente" episodes and the two "Mirologhi" tracks separated by the title cut; each articulates a divergent strand of diplophony and triplophony, where the voice can create two and three tones simultaneously. Whether the sound is one of guttural growling or high-pitched whining, or simply a mid-range vibration, the sounds seem not to come from the throat at all, or from the expulsion of air, but from the manipulation of the lobes of the brain that dictates the signal to the vocal chords. And, as one might expect of such a disc, this is not remotely easy listening, but more utterly compelling, the witnessing of a phenomenon not encountered in the west before, nor explored to such depth of field since. Truly amazing.