Photo Giulio di Mauro 2023
Alos
Embrace the Darkenss
12-inch red vinyl record and 36-page color artbook. Edition of 300
Co-produced by Occulto, Archaeological Records and Dio Drone
Released on November 25th, 2023
ORDER
Alos’s art book Embrace the Darkness is a new special release by Occulto, with photos by Giulio di Mauro, original illustrations by Gio Pistone, and texts By Klaus Miser, Renzo Zaia and Giulia Ferrato, among others. The publication accompanies a 12-inch vinyl record co-produced by Archaeological Records and Dio Drone. The release date was November 25th, 2023, the anniversary of a tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption in Stromboli in 1343, as well as the international day for the elimination of violece against women. The vinyl+book edition wasfirst presented at SPRINT Milano on November 25-26, 2023.
Alos’s new ritual Embrace the Darkness emerged from an on-site, practice-based artistic research undertaken on the island of Stromboli in the summer of 2022. It’s her most intimate and complex project, completed twenty years after the emergence of her artistic identity. During 2021, Alos went through the darkness, first struggling with serious illness, then going through a hard physical rehabilitation that involved 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 Marosi in Stromboli promptly enabled the incubation of the new vision on the slopes of one of the most active volcanoes in Europe.
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 the edition, printed in 300 copies, that combines sound, visuals, and texts.
With this release, Occulto continues working its way to becoming a small publishing house, and builds on its decades-long active involvement in the experimental music scene, which included the organisation of two performances by Alos in Berlin, in 2015 and 2018. Thanks to our involvement in Embrace the Darkness, we collaborated once more with her, this time as editor and publisher.
Credits
12-inch vinyl record
Alos: vocals, modular synthesizers, artistic glass objects, bells and volcanic stones.
Performed live by ALOS aka Stefania Pedretti in various locations on the island of Stromboli, Italy, during an artist residency at Marosi 2022.
Recordings and mixing by Marcello Batelli.
Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi.
Pressed on red with black splatter vinyl. Photography and visuals by Giulio Di Mauro. Illustrations by Gio Pistone. Layout by Náresh Ran. Released by Archaeological Records and Dio Drone.
Artist’s book
36 pages, color, English.
Photos and video stills by Giulio Di Mauro.
Illustrations by Gio Pistone.
Texts by Stefania Alos Pedretti, Náresh Ran, Klaus Miser, Marcello Batelli, Francesca R.Y.F. Morello, Giulio Di Mauro, Giulia Ferrato, Renzo Zaia, Alice Cannavà.
Designed and edited by Alice Cannavà.
Published by Occulto.
