Product Description
2 Citla
3 Shadow Current
4 Stars of Darkness
5 Steppe Traveler
6 Shard Tribe
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Limited edition of 1000
Genres: Tribal Ambient, Throat Singing, Electronic, Shamanic Music
Curandero ignites the imagination on a frontier between the known and the exotic, the stable and chaotic, fear and freedom. On their first collaboration, pioneering ambient electronic artist Steve Roach teams up with acclaimed throat singer and ritual artist SoRIAH to fashion a unique, propulsive experience. Roach’s transcendent realms weave with SoRIAH’s ecstatic spectral voice to decipher the vastness, wonders and mysteries of this planet and the cosmos.
Esteemed artists in the field of sonic shamanism, Roach and SoRIAH create a distinct expression of enigmatic immersive ritual music seamlessly integrated with harmonic overtone singing and spirit incantations. Roach — an originator of the tribal ambient genre — has resided for many years in Baja Arizona, drawing deep inspiration from the ancestral land of the curanderos. The curanderos are the indigenous sages who cure with folk plant medicine and a profound working knowledge of the natural environment as well as the spiritual. SoRIAH’s world travels and deep devotion to the art of Tuvan throat singing (Khöömei) paired with his ancestral and artistic heritage brought him to the very land where this collaboration took place, the mystical ground of modern Baja Arizona known in antiquity as the ancient motherland of Aztlán.
“This music is curative, deep shadow work on the cusp between sound healing and esoteric shamanic exorcism.” — SoRIAH
“Curandero offers a power spot between the worlds; a portal is opened to where the invisible becomes tangible and integrative.” — Steve Roach
Recorded and mixed at the Timehouse, Baja Arizona, the Shaman Perch, Portland, Oregon and the Grand Hotel Ulaangom, Mongolia.
The mix of interwoven trance rhythms, hallucinatory atmospheres and harmonic vocal overtones creates a magical essence of the elemental and energetic interconnections of our world and the realms between and beyond ordinary states of consciousness.
Steve Roach : various analog and digital synths, sequencers, electric and acoustic percussion, drum machines, prehispanic flutes
SoRIAH : throat singing (Khöömei), Aztec death whistle, Indonesian bamboo flute, Synth One, SpaceCraft, Tuvan drum, shaman drum, acoustic percussion, 42-inch Dark Star Gong
Also on Projekt from SoRIAH:
Soriah (with Ashkelon Sain): Atlan #CDSale $10
Soriah (with Ashkelon Sain): Eztica #CDSale $10
Reviews Editor –
From Chain DLK
There are albums that politely ask for your attention, and others that grab you by the collar and whisper, “don’t resist”. Curandero belongs firmly to the second category. This first collaboration between Steve Roach and SoRIAH doesn’t merely play – it performs a function. What that function is depends on the listener: meditation, confrontation, trance, or a gentle sonic shove into unfamiliar inner territory.
Steve Roach, a foundational figure in ambient and tribal electronic music, has spent decades refining a language that moves slowly but speaks in deep tones. His long relationship with the desert landscapes of the American Southwest isn’t a romantic footnote; it’s structural. On Curandero, his synthesisers, sequencers and ritual percussion don’t decorate the space – they prepare it, laying down a terrain that feels ancient without cosplay, expansive without drifting into vagueness.
Enter SoRIAH, whose throat singing is less vocal performance and more presence. His overtone work, rooted in Khöömei traditions yet clearly shaped by a life of travel and hybrid practice, doesn’t float above Roach’s electronics – it wrestles with them, merges, splits, reappears elsewhere. The result is not a fusion in the polite world-music sense, but a genuine interdependence: remove one voice and the structure collapses.
Tracks like “Analog Cave” and “Shadow Current” unfold with ritual patience. Rhythms pulse rather than push, suggesting movement without destination. There’s a physicality here – low frequencies press against the chest, while higher overtones shimmer like heat mirages. Online commentary often frames the album as healing, but that word can be misleading. This isn’t spa music. It’s closer to controlled exposure: the sound equivalent of standing very still while something large circles you.
“Stars of Darkness” and “Shard Tribe” introduce denser layers, where Roach’s sequenced patterns begin to feel almost architectural, and SoRIAH’s voice fractures into multiple spectral roles – chant, breath, warning signal. At moments, it’s unsettling; at others, strangely grounding. The humour, if any, lies in the album’s absolute lack of irony. In 2025, committing this hard to ritual seriousness is practically subversive.
What makes Curandero compelling is its refusal to explain itself. The references to indigenous knowledge, shamanic practice and altered states aren’t presented as concepts to be consumed, but as conditions to be entered – carefully, respectfully, and at your own risk. Roach and SoRIAH don’t promise enlightenment. They offer a doorway, hold it open, and let the sound do the rest.
This is music that doesn’t ask whether you believe in its power. It proceeds on the assumption that sound, given enough space and intention, will do what it has always done: unsettle, connect, and remind us that listening can still be an act of transformation. Whether you call that healing or simply attention sharpened to a blade is entirely up to you. -Vito Camarretta
Reviews Editor –
From Exposé
Steve Roach has a catalog that is quite extensive, approaching 300 full-length releases as I write this, and through the years many of his most memorable albums have been collaborations with other musicians travelling similar paths: VidnaObmana, Radiant Mind, Kevin Braheny, Michael Shrieve, Robert Rich, Michael Stearns, Roger King, Stephen Kent, Vir Unis, Jorge Reyes, Byron Metcalf, Mark Seelig, Robert Logan, Kelly David, Serena Gabriel, Sam Rosenthal, Peter Grenadier, Miles Richmond, Elmar Schulte, and many many more. These collaborations are important because they tend to pull Roach out of his comfort zone and make him a contributor to something entirely new and somewhat unexpected, sometimes to new places he’s never been previously.
As far as I’m aware, Curandero is Roach’s first collaboration with Soriah, and the six tracks herein move into the deep ritualistic and tribal territory where Roach has been many times before, though this time it goes far beyond previous sorties, into what might be called shamanic ritual music. Soriah (real name: Enrique Ugalde) brings the specialties of Khöömei (Tuvan throat singing) blended with whispered vocals, Indonesian bamboo flute, gongs, shaman drums, Tuvan drums, Aztec death whistle, plus synthesizers, to the collaboration, while Roach brings his various analog and digital synthesizers, sequencers, electronic and acoustic percussion and prehispanic flutes. Immersive? Yes. Engaging? You bet. Soriah splits his time between the Tuvan republic (part of Russia, just north of Mongolia) and a home base in Portland, Oregon, which is where the parts for Curandero were recorded, while Roach recorded his parts from The Timehouse in Baja Arizona. Each of the six cuts herein takes a different path, and a listener will find plenty of variation throughout all the pieces. The stunning twelve-minute “Shadow Current” is like a swirling cauldron of psychedelic strangeness that picks the listener up on one end of a portal and leaves them on the other, after one amazing journey. The opener “Analog Cave” features all of the tribal sounds, hand drums, whispered voices and throat singing that one might expect, while the synthesizers and electronics permeate the background. At just seven minutes, “Steppe Traveler” may be one of the shorter tracks on the album, but it’s an engaging one, as a carpet of busy percussives are rolled out for the electronics and voices to build upon, while “Stars of Darkness” is quite the opposite, flowing gently forward with gongs and synths while the throat singing fades in and out of the background. Closer “Shard Tribe” flows in gently with a variety of mysterious percussion that slowly engulfs the listener, all amid electronics and throat singing, morphing constantly as it goes, until it all begins settling down as it approaches its thirteen minute conclusion. Curandero is a unique and unusual set that merits a close listen for all who want to travel beyond the usual fare. -Peter Thelen