Soriah, aka Enrique Ugalde, is of Mexican descent on his father's side, and is trained in Tuvan throat singing, winning competitions in this vocal style held in Tuva. On this collaboration with Ashkelon Sain of Trance to the Sun, Soriah combines Mexican and Tuvan/Central Asian influences by performing Tuvan style throat singing in the Aztec language Nahuatl. The music itself is a moving, absorbing blend of world music and atmospheric soundscaping, combining a whole host of exotic instruments such as igil, byzaanchy, doshpulur, shruti box and clay flute (all played by Soriah) with Ashkelon Sain's contributions of modern instrumentation such as synth, drums, guitar and sampling. The chanting and drumming have a shamanistic feel, the consciousness-altering quality of the music also being found in the ambient electronic additions.

Anyone already familiar with Tuvan throat singing will recognize the 'overtone' style heard here in Xopancuicatl, Borbak, and briefly in a few other tracks, in which one voice splits into two, with one of the vocal sounds having more in common with a musical instrument such as a flute rather than anything most people would imagine the human voice to be capable of. As well as the Nahuatl lyrics, Soriah also sings two pieces in Tuvan, namely Borbak and the truly excellent Morguul, which whilst having an electronic drone in the background sounds on the whole like authentic world music and includes some effective use of percussion and a bowed stringed instrument.

Impressive stuff - would like to hear more from Soriah.

SummaryThe songs on Atlan have a spore like potency. While listening I get a feeling in the back of my brain that they are somehow reawakening the old and sleeping powers of the earth. It is an album that reaffirms for me that the roots of music are often to be found in the otherworld. With his unique ability to seamlessly bridge the primordial with the contemporary Soriah returns the first instrument known to humankind –the voice- to a place of high honor. As a Tuvan throat singer highly skilled in overtone chanting Soriah shows that the voice is also one of the best instruments for creating sustained drones. When combined with Ashkelon Sain’s adept hand at electronic effects the result is nothing short of stunning.

On his third full-length release Soriah is joined by the ever prolific Ashkelon Sain, memorable from his many years heading Trance to the Sun. Sain’s fondness for oversaturated hallucinatory soundscapes and drizzly shoegaze guitar is perfectly complimented by Soriah’s multi-timbred throat singing. While certainly not imitators, comparisons to Dead Can Dance would not be inappropriate. Both groups paint their psychoacoustic masterpieces from a similar palette using voice, tribal percussion, keyboards and stringed instruments from around the world. Furthermore Soriah’s ability to hold multiple pitches simultaneously adds new depth and freshness to a musical formula already tried and true. Singing in the ancient Aztec language of Nahuatl his voice is resonant with a beauty that pays homage to his ancestral homeland of Mexico. All of these factors blend together quite naturally and make for a unique listening experience.

The pacing of the 11 songs on this disc is perfect. I feel like a drunken sailor on a boat drifting amongst starry archipelagos when I listen. Lulled into a benevolent somnolence I gently rise and fall with waves of sound that continuously crash and crest. The first song, “Yoallicuicatl,” establishes the general mood with thickly bowed strings buzzing a sonorous melody over the top of an undulating keyboard. It serves to create a sacred listening space by cleansing any obstructive energy left lingering from previous stereo sessions. The second track kicks off with the bells and hand drums that are present throughout the disc in various rhythmic combinations. The meditative percussion forms a backbone of sonic entrainment that Soriah weaves his vocal sorcery around. Deeply emotive, his voice lets out long wavering cries and deep bellows that are both transcendent and ominous. I would be curious to know what his lyrics translate into, but without that knowledge I am free to listen more closely to the subtleties within his often multi-tracked voice.

“Morguul” is exemplary of the albums overall ekstasis. The percussion reminds me of a hard spring rain pattering on a rooftop, while Soriah’s voice rings and vibrates in long ululating drones. The violin adds bright touches of gaiety and fills me with optimism. “Borbak” however is darker, earthy and chthonic. A high pitched insect like whistle whirrs and murmurs in the background, slightly rising and falling, mimicking within the microstructure of the song what the album does a whole. The closing “Amo Cahuit” is similarly foreboding. With crunchy strains of distorted guitar echoing as if out of a cave, a sibilant hiss that howls like the wind, and a menacing swell of deep bass amidst the softly tinkling bells it easily raises the hairs on the back of my neck. Soriah and Sain show high caliber and precision in their artistry and Atlan, full of grace and nuance, will be a keynote in my ever evolving musical rotation for quite some time. - Justin Patrick   

Grazie al passaggio alla corte della blasonata Projekt di Sam Rosenthal, il progetto Soriah, guidato dal musicista di Portland Enrique Ugalde, troverà sicuramente un'esposizione mediatica maggiore di quella avuta per le due precedenti uscite su Beta-Lactam e per il CDr dello scorso anno su Ruido Horrible. E l'artista americano merita sicuramente quel maggiore exposure che sicuramente gli garantirà anche la proficua collaborazione con Ashkelon Sain, musicista ben noto per le sue gesta negli indimenticati Trance To The Sun e, in tempi più recenti, per il lavoro svolto sotto il monicker Submarine Fleet. La peculiarità fondamentale di Soriah risiede nella vocalità di Enrique, il quale è un affermato esecutore (con tanto di riconoscimenti ufficiali a testimoniarlo) della tecnica dei 'tuvan throat singers', ovvero quel tipico canto armonico (o diplofonico) dal taglio gutturale che semplicisticamente qualcuno potrebbe etichettare - senza peraltro asserire qualcosa di errato - come 'tibetano', ma che nel caso specifico, partendo da un ceppo turco, affonda le sue radici nella Repubblica popolare di Tuva (o meglio, nelle sue antiche tradizioni), stato dell'ex-Unione Sovietica che si trova all'estremo sud della Siberia, al confine con la Mongolia. La collaborazione con Ashkelon Sain sposta inevitabilmente il baricentro sonoro rispetto alle criptiche release precedenti (decisamente più ostiche e smaccatamente rituali di quella in esame): il massiccio impiego di synth e percussioni (reali o campionate) si sposa bene sia con la suggestiva tecnica vocale di Enrique che con strumenti ricercati quali igil, byzaanchy, doshpuluur etc., oltre a flauti e campane, ed il risultato finale si rivela nettamente più arioso e musicale rispetto alle altre prove di Soriah. Soprattutto l'intreccio fra le morbide linee di synth, le percussioni ariose e l'ineccepibile tecnica vocale del Nostro (che trae ispirazione anche dalla tradizione azteca di quel Messico da cui la sua famiglia proviene, e che in passato ha già prestato i propri servigi a rinomati artisti quali Blixa Bargeld, Jarboe, Psychic TV e molti altri...) si dimostra vincente, manifestandosi al meglio nelle varie "Cehui", "Tonacayotica" e "Xopancuicatl"; talvolta la voce lascia il posto agli strumenti, come nel caso della meditativa "Citlalpol" o nella malinconica "Tona Atoyaatl", ma quel feeling sciamanico e quel tocco rituale, che permeano un lavoro attraversato dal soffio dell'anima e capace di evocare dimensioni raggiungibili solo dallo spirito, non vengono mai meno. Colpiscono soprattutto una title-track musicalmente più tenue e fragile, una "Morguul" le cui serene melodie non fanno perdere una sola oncia d'intensità, una "Borbak" quasi impalpabile nel suo sottile intreccio strumentale e soprattutto la conclusiva "Amo Cahuit", apoteosi spirituale fra sussurri, passaggi ambientali e crescendo sonori emotivamente ammirevoli. Quanto creato assieme dai due artisti, nonostante la lunghezza a tratti eccessiva dell'opera in esame, apre nuovi possibili scenari nella musica oscura, permettendo al pubblico mentalmente più aperto di apprezzare qualcosa di apparentemente lontano anni luce come il 'tuvan throath singing' in un contesto sonoro affascinante e permeato da una forte spiritualità: da scoprire, soprattutto per i cultori della musica (spi)rituale. - Roberto Alessandro Filippozzi. Rating : 7.5

You haven't heard half of what the vast realm of music has the potential to offer until you've heard 'Atlan'. Ritual performer and throat singer Soriah has teamed up with Ashkelon Sain (of Trance to the Sun) to create an album which fuses the soul with the synthesizer at last, making the mechanical and mystical one. Sweeping soundscapes guide the listener on a journey led by haunting vocals, and the result is honestly one-of-a-kind. Check out tracks "Tonacayotica", "Amo Cahuit", and the superbly haunting opener "Yoallicuicatl". (Jessika)

A secret truth revealed: Beauty and the Beast are the same thing. Soriah’s chimera fusion with Ashkelon Sain has produced a sprawling entity, darkly cloaked in groaning atmospheres, yet emanating an ascending light of inestimable beauty. Atlan is a deeply organic experience. Crisp hand percussion palpitates rising drones in a cellular blood-rush of life. Long, open expanses of slowly shifting tones hang like low clouds in a frosted mountain range. And when the Quetzalcoatl Kundalini of Soriah’s lyrical throat singing fires down the spine, everything goes astral. Quivering strings and chimes offer allusions to Arabo-Andaleusian textures which run rivulet alongside Tuvan strains throughout the dreamscape. Dead CAN dance to such music, because this is the music of the underworld; the music of hidden places visited by beings beyond the corporeal. Both artists have long pedigrees; some 40 years of live and recorded musical experience between them. Soriah has existed under that name for over a decade, having released several albums and known for performing all places mystical, including trees, churches, caves. He has also been recognized, through international competition, as one of the top 5 throat singers in the world. Ashkelon Sain’s Trance To The Sun project is legendary. And his composition skills have been honed razor sharp with his more recent Submarine Fleet. The collaboration is a match made in Omeyocan (the highest Aztec Heaven). Each of Atlan’s 11 tracks is a unique, carefully carved sound-mosque. Like minded soul miners Terry Riley, Huun Huur Tu, SPK’(Zamia Lehmanni)and Robert Rich are good touchstones for what’s in store, but trying to aptly describe the sonic majesty of Atlan may require divine intervention. - Thomas Jones (Crossroads Records, Portland)

Compared to the previous Soriah release, the approach has become somewhat different, and through its cooperation with dronescape musician Ashkelon Sain this new release despite its one element of darkwave/drone wave trance music sounds in fact lighter, while musically it is less intense, the concentration inside a shamanic atmosphere background is much more to the fore, and has impressive moments penetrating with the vocal ranges and effects and inner concentration into the listener’s direction, being able at certain points to reach his emotions and has certain effects on him too, especially on the title track, and specifically where the keyboards are not too much filling up spaces and moods along with a few acoustic instruments. The approach on this album can be compared to certain other shamanic singer releases, and I’m sure will also appeal to people with a more new age/alternative mood interest who do not want to have too difficult new experiences that still refers to something beyond their usual perspectives.

In the meanwhile, Soriah in 2008 had participated as a Tuvan singer from Portland in an International Symposium of Khoomei Competition, where he was awarded a third place, while travelling to Tuva he there also received the 2008 Ustuu-Khorree World Music Festival award for “Best Foreigner.” In this album five tracks were sung in the ancient Aztec language of Nahuatl, while two others are interpretations of traditional Tuvan chants. Traditional violin/picking instruments and such (Soriah) were combined with acoustic trance rhythms and darker dronewaves on keyboards, which last element works like a carpet for a semi-dream state. The songs are real and have their inner powers and they express themselves in an environment where the listener can easily adapts himself into it.

I hope one day I will be able to experience the voice with backgrounds live one day. Soriah also has a good eye for fitting suitable impressive costumes.

The Mexican-American ritual performer, musician and trained Tuva throat singer Soriah aka Enrique Ugalde has teamed with recording artist, producer and composer Ashkelon Sain (Submarine Fleet, ex-Trance To The Sun) back in 2009 for this truly unique, exotic and adventurous journey. With three previous releases on Soriah's credit, "Atlan" is by far of the giant caliber. This album masterfully bridges ancient and modern, various exotic stringed instruments from Tuva Republic (Southern Siberian part of Russia) are used, like igil, byzaanchy (both bowed) or doshpuluur, plus more traditional instruments or objects like shruti box, clay flute, bells, conch, whistle... plus synthesizers, electric guitar, drums... plus "creme de la creme" of this album, Soriah's highly expressive and mesmerizing voice and Tuva throat singing, with lyrics in Aztec language of Nahuatl and two vocalizations are traditional Tuvan chants. Soriah's voice is definitely another absolutely unique instrument on this album.

"Atlan" opens mysteriously and stunningly with instrumental and buzzing stringed performance entitled "Yoallicuicatl", great overture! Then follows "Cehui", brilliantly merging electronics, tribals and Soriah's voice magics into a composition that is, for me, one of many highlights and ultimate classic ready for Hall Of Fame induction!!! Muchas gracias, amigos!!! "Tonacayotica" is again dominated by Soriah's voice, where raw vocals interfere with whispering ones, and gentle mid-paced tribal rhythms and relaxing trancey tempos, all together perfectly boiled and balanced. Shorter "Temictli Atlan" is painted with strings and washes. "Citlalpol" is another instrumental piece, based around solo performances on bowed stringed instruments, have no idea which of them exactly are used, however, they sound highly expressive. Later the texture becomes more layered and active. "Xopancuicatl" is the most active, but very light composition with tranquilly melodious tempos spiced by voice wizardry of Soriah. Truly mesmerizing effect due to amazingly collided warm atmospherics, crispy rhythms and raw voice, another top notch contribution elegantly blending the past and the future!!!

Title track "Atlan" belongs to deeply mysterious and ritualistic compositions on the album showcasing the power and mastery of Soriah's throat singing (one of the traditional Tuvan chants). A true shamanistic listening experience at its finest!!! But it all goes even beyond, "Morguul" is one of the highly active pieces where rhythms, melodies and voices create a truly unique blend that can be described as kind of "western tribal ritual ceremony". Man, this is really unbelievable and absolutely phenomenal!!! And the end is not here yet... "Borbak" gets much deeper with tranquilly floating atmosonics, significant flutes and whistles and deeply evocative voices, another giant on this journey! Instrumental "Tona Atoyaatl", that keeps on slower and darker route, with enormously imaginative crying bowed fiddle strings (igil or byzaanchy?), is as much graceful as its predecessor!

And just the same can be said about the closing 12+ minutes hypnotizing opus "Amo Cahuit", the darkest droning piece on this 76-minute long pure blissful sacred inner journey!!! Soriah and Ashkelon Sain are true shamans, with "Atlan" at the very top of their virtuosity. Even if sounding totally different with their own, distinctive soundscaping and voice, I think late Jorge Reyes would be really proud to hear and see these guys. Yes, if you have a chance to catch them live, don't miss them, extraordinary lifetime sonic and visual experience guaranteed!!! Last but not least, new "Eztica" album is scheduled for release in October 2011 on Projekt. Now the question is how Soriah and Ashkelon Sain can top "Atlan"...? I will tell you in few months. Until then once again, muchas gracias, Maestros, for taking me on this wonderfully rich, breathtaking and unforgettable sonic exploration!!! -Richard Gürtler

This third release by Soriah is an unsettling, esoteria gumbo of central Asian throat singing, Mesoamerican tradition and darkwave stylings. Soriah, a.k.a. Enrique Ugalde, intones dark, otherwordly meditations over Ashlelon Sain's (Trance to the Sun) ambient layers of sound and rhythm. No dabbler in Tuvan-style throat singing, Ugalde was recently named "Best Foreigner" in an Ustuu-Khuree festival competition. The seven Nahuatl (Aztec) language songs, two traditional Tuvan chants and two instrumental tracks would be equally at home in a horror film or as the aural background for a romantic evening (the part after dinner, when something earthy and not-too-distracting sets the mood for, uh, "romance"). The title track and"Xopancuicatl" are the most contemporary, with beats and expressive dancer could catch and release bats to, but don't expect to hear this disc at the club, and don't add it to your "Driving All Night" playlist. - Madelyn Boudreaux.