Vidna Obmana

Artist: Alio Die + Dirk Serries (Vidna Obmana)
P:  2022
The chapters of the eclipse is the new musical union of Italy's Alio Die (Stefano Musso) and Belgium's Dirk Serries (vidnaObmana) which, more than twenty years after their previous collaboration contains three compositions in a suspended airy, majestic succession. The meditative and minimalist electronic ambient sky is suspended at the interval for liberation from the shadows of becoming: life in its most essential orientation.

Artist: Dirk Serries
P: 2013
Dirk Serries, the legendary Belgian genius behind vidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning projects, celebrates here another chapter of his challenging "Microphonics" efforts. After the conclusion of previously mentioned projects, Dirk keeps on his journey to the boundaries of uncharted sonic terrains, a territory fusing all his long time musical experiences, visions and virtuosities. "Microphonics XXI-XXV" CD, a follow up to Dirk's debut "Microphonics I-V" from the end 2008, was released by Dutch Tonefloat Records in the middle of March, 2013 and it comes in attractive mini album gatefold sleeve featuring stunning urban pictures by Martina Verhoeven, Dirk's wife. Mastered by James Plotkin.
The opener, "Mounting Among The Waves" unfolds with quite harsh guitar dissonances, although minimally sculpted, the sound palette is quite wide, where intensely emerging passages of noise perplexes blend with floating backgrounds. The piece gradually build and steadily increase into powerfully immense sonic sceneries of utterly deep evocativeness. Even if having throughout its slightly ear-splitting surface, these peaking drones develop into a stunningly visualizing movements filled with sheer beauty and poignancy. Elegiac strings invade "There's A Light In Vein", but this melancholic stillness is soon intermingled on the background with slowly evolving panoramic textures, expanding by every second in its intensity and monstrousness. Ultra thick guitar dronescapes reach full bloom and paint genuinely magnificent and harmonious canvas, where unforgettable memories of vidnaObmana are awaken... This composition is a huge milestone melting the most magical moments of both, vidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning, with Dirk's most recent harmonic desolations, a brightly shinning kaleidoscope of sounds, sensitiveness and reminiscences, an emotional powerhouse gratifying the listener's soul!!! "There's A Light In Vein" will counterpart any of the most famous vidnaObmana compositions, guitar drone manipulations have never sounded better!!! Thank you so much, Maestro, for this truly unique listening delight!!! "The Burden Of Hope" is announced by rawer riffs, again its shape sounds rather minimal, especially during the first three minutes, but always effective. The background drone blanket slowly enlarges into thicker volume and fully blossom into another breathtaking wide-screen scenario, melting rougher tensities with weighty dose of expansive drone roars and streams into one, monumentally monolithic sculpture, gloriously encircling and stimulating. Certainly another phenomenal piece in this set!!! "Thousands Of Rivers" relieves the tension a bit, although keeping its harsh edge, again masterfully intertwined with warmly gliding cloudscapes. Beautifully disturbing!!!
Yes, I am still deeply missing vidnaObmana, and always will, but with this album Dirk Serries has accomplished another huge step in his musical explorations. "Microphonics XXI-XXV" is a triumphant piece of art displaying extraordinary emotional sonorousness and invites each devoted listener to the frontier of intriguing guitar drone wizardry!!! And by the way, "Low Volume Music 2" with his long time traveler Steve Roach is the works too...

Richard Gürtler (Jun 02, 2013, Bratislava, Slovakia)

Artist: Fear Falls Burning
P: 2005
The debut release from Fear Falls Burning... vidnaObmana reinvents himself within this new persona. Fascinated by the extreme tonalities the electric guitar can produce, vidnaObmana transformed himself into Fear Falls Burning in order to record this debut album.
"he spoke in dead tongues" is truly an amazing statement in tone and harmony, centered around the real-time performances on the electric guitar. Through the unique wiring of the guitar pedal effects, its single performed guitarchord multiplies and shifts over time into dense and trance-inducing walls of sound. A spectrum of sound that sounds deliberately old and monotonous in reference to the vintage and replica effects. All clicks, ticks and cracks are part of the real-time performance.
With this double album on Projekt/Ikon Fear Falls Burning succeeds in performing a new language in music that cleverly delves into that fine musical line where lo-fi, instrumental post-rock, avant-garde, experimental and industrial meet...
A willful crossing between the infinite looping on Fripp&Eno's "No Pussyfooting" and the power chords of Sunn O.
This double CD solidifies Fear Falls Burning's willful vision in guitar drone music. In comparison to Fear Falls Burning's unofficial tour CD, First by a whisper, then by a storm, he spoke in dead tongues tells the complete story - way better balanced and sequenced but equally bold and unique.

Artist: Fear Falls Burning
P: 2006
DVD-Audio
LTD 500
Fear Falls Burning is Dirk Serries’ love letter to the world of electric guitar drones. Serries, best known for his solo act VidnaObmana, launched Fear Falls Burning in the winter of 2005 as an outlet for his fascination with lo-fi and post-rock music, and as a way to return to his roots in drone music, where he first began 22 years ago. By processing the sounds of his Les Paul guitars through a large and elaborately configured collection effects pedals, Serries produces improvisational music that is by turns meditative, rhythmic and occasionally thunderous. A typical performance begins with a simple, sustained guitar chord. This opening sound seeds the ground from which the entire piece is grown. As the looping and processing techniques are applied, the music evolves, dictating the direction of the performance. It is truly an improvisational process, but at the masterful hands of Serries, one that spins a new and mysterious kind of music, fully infused with a rare passion and soul. Organic variations and imperfections are spontaneously introduced, giving the performance a rich hue of unpredictability. Looped patterns of sound rise and fall, mutated by a succession of real-time treatments. This improvisational technique is the defining characteristic of Fear Falls Burning. In the spring of 2005, and again in the autumn of the same year, Serries took Fear Falls Burning on tour, performing in Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium. The shows were all recorded, and the best performances were chosen for release. Originally envisioned as a boxed set of six CDs, “The Infinite Sea of Sustain” morphed into a single DVD containing more than 4-1/2 hours of music. Each of the six performances is a single, uninterrupted improvisational composition, accompanied on screen by an abstract live photograph from the concerts; these are not music videos, and there is no motion picture footage. It’s all about taking advantage of the DVD format as a more cost-conscious and convenient way of presenting the music, and it plays in any standard DVD player. For best sound we recommend playback through a stereo sound system. An on-screen menu allows listeners to play the entire collection or choose individual concerts, but the use of a television is optional.
 

Artist: Seofon
P: 2001
Zero Point inaugurates a collaboration between Hypnos and The Foundry, which will continue with an ongoing series of releases featuring ambient and experimental music. Zero Point is the product of "recycling" collaborations begun between Vidna Obmana, Steve Roach and Seofon. As the project progressed Stephen Kent, Robert Rich, Not Breathing, and Thermal were included in the circle and the result is a wonderful album full of shifting textures and shimmering ideas. Recycling is a term coined by Vidna Obmana (and Asmus Tietchens) to describe a process more immersive than simple remixing. Zero Point: lessons in being nothing showcases some of the great talents in electronic music today, and finds them participating in a unique form of collaboration. With Ambient Temple of Imagination (ATOI) tracks as the inspiration and source material, Vidna Obmana, Steve Roach, and Seofon opened a circle of recycling. Entirely new pieces were created using a variety of methods and collaborative trajectories with Seofon (a member of Ambient Temple of Imagination) serving as a center-point: coordinating the project, making his own recycling contributions, and integrating the finished tracks into a hypnotic tapestry. The resulting music has traveled a long way from its origins, the original material barely recognizable in the new pieces. This album is full of rich textures, subtle and powerful both. Follow the rhythms, connect the melodies and harmonics in your listening; the rewards are great!

Artist: Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf
P: 2000   
Ambient explorer Roach and percussionist Metcalf originally began this as an experiment into the effects of breathwork and the use of sound on a person "as a shamanic strategy for healing, personal growth, and transformation." The successful effects their music had in group settings were extended into these compositions. While billed as a collaboration between the two men, The Serpent's Lair also features contributions by (deep breath) violinist Vicki Richards, overtone vocalist Jim Cole, pre-Hispanic sound sorcerer Jorge Reyes, singer Lena Stevens, synthesist Vidna Obmana, "groove alchemist" Vir Unis, and djembe players Jeffrey Fayman and Momodu "Mohammad" Kah. The two discs in this package act as yin and yang--the eight parts of the first disc, "The Serpent's Lair," highlight intoxicatingly hypnotic drum rhythms slicing through churning ambient spaces, while the seven cuts that make up the second disc, "Offerings from the Underworld," travel down darker, spacier streams with subtle rhythms, reverberant vocals, and exotic aerophones caressing and riding the ethereal aural waves. This invigorating combination of musicians invents a dynamic new perspective on Roach's trademark deep-listening forays. It would be wonderful to hear more collaborations like this.
All music arranged, mixed, melted and recorded by Steve Roach at the Timeroom Studio, Tucson AZ. 1999 - 2000
Music produced by Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf.

With musical help from:
Vicki Richards - serpentine violin in The Lair
Lena Stevens - processed voice
Vidna Obmana - harmonic wave in pt. I in Rite Of Passage.
Jeffery Faymanand Momodu "Mohammad" Kah - djembe in Rite Of Passage, Big Medicine and Future Tribe
Jorge Reyes - voice, flutes, ocarinas, whistles, shamanic percussion and voice in Birthright and Cave Dwellers
Vir Unis - groove alchemy in Beating Hearth Of The Dragon Mother and Lena - voice in Ochua

Artist: Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana
P: 2012    
After a ten year hiatus, Steve Roach and Dirk Serries (formerly recording as vidnaObmana or Vidna Obmana) reconnect to begin anew. The result is LOW VOLUME MUSIC, an introspective musical palette solely dedicated to harmony, integrity and pure beauty.
In a world where the noise level of daily life has increased to a fever pitch, this release offers an essential sonic respite from the external distractions. These five delicate sound meditations appear in the listening space like slowly drifting incense. The pieces are built upon a perfect blend of deep ambient characteristics: looping and lush textures and harmonics mixed with subtle, hovering, lattice-like forms. The tracks follow a zen-like flow, bringing the listener's attention down to a distinct stillness, a single point; gently shifting, sparkling mirror pools of sound are revealed as meditations to reflect upon. The understated beauty of LOW VOLUME MUSIC offers a path back to the soulful nourishment found at the quiet center.
"We chose the title LOW VOLUME MUSIC," Dirk reflects, "because we wanted to score an album of pure minimalism, introspection and harmony; music that is most effective at a lower volume. Although it draws from our personal and mutual universe of sound, I believe the biggest difference from the past is we both wanted to aim for something unclouded without pushing each other to break sonic boundaries. We both felt it was vital for us personally to express that part of us that we return to: the pure, harmonically-nuanced side of our art that we naturally live and breathe."
Over the course of their six releases and many international concerts, Roach and Serries pushed the edges of ambient electronic music, then when the time felt right they respectfully stepped away to pursue other work. With LOW VOLUME MUSIC, Roach and Serries reconnect to create a beautiful release, displaying a vision sublimely refined, minimal, and true. This is perhaps their most personal collaboration to date.

Artist: Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana
P: 1997    
On their collaboration, Cavern of Sirens, Roach and Obmana uncover yet another level of artistry within their shared passion for un compromised sound worlds. The result is at once alluring and focused, fusing the duo's continuously evolving signature of trance-percussion and rich harmonic textures that defy any sense of known location or origin. The release gathers four stirring pieces which lead to a final harmonic reflection which suggests what's in store on their next project, already in the works. Cavern of Sirens encompasses nearly 74 minutes of music presented in an elegant booklet featuring the organic visions of Belgian photographer Martine Verhoeven. Stepping outside a world obsessed with categorizing every fragment of experience, Roach and Obmana explore subtle shades of nuance that words cannot touch. Together, they bring to life insights and apparitions that can only be charted by those willing to ride the lush and treacherous sound currents spiraling ever deeper through the Cavern of Sirens.

Artist: Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana 
P: 2000    
LTD 1000
This enhanced CD unites Martina Verhoeven's photography (seen on the CAVERN OF SIRENS cover) with an exclusive soundtrack by Vidna Obmana & Steve Roach, and Linda Kohanov's intense and breathtaking poetry. The audio portion, 60 minutes long, plays on any CD player, while the multimedia presentation requires a Windows PC. (Mac users can use Virtual PC from Connectix.)
Dark music with effect to the pictures.

Here the last copy.

Artist: Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana
P: 2002    
Surrealist soundsculptures Steve Roach and Vidna Obmana return with InnerZone, their first new collaborative work since 1999's quickly sold-out limited edition box set Ascension of Shadows. Venturing off safe and well travelled roads, the duo step into a chilling and beautifully haunted realm of shapeshifting soundscapes mixed with fascinating rythmic forms. This compelling release reminds the listener why Roach/Obmana are the masters of atmospheric electronic music. An unusual combination of acoustic and electronic instruments expands the zones of their previous CDs together. Vidna Obmana's fujara, a Hungarian overtone flute, weaves with Roach's ultra-textural and expansive guitar zones to create a hybrid electro-acoustic mix. On InnerZone, the final merging of surreal acoustic, electronic elements and deep “inner” rhythms present an ambiguous and at the same time inviting space to visit; taking the duo to the next level of their collaborative work.
 

Artist: Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana 
P: 2005   
First released as a limited edition of 2000 in 1998, the 3-CD box set Ascension Of Shadows quickly sold out, and has remained a highly-desired prize for Roach and Obmana fans.
The first release in the series is the long-form piece "Somewhere Else". This track is without doubt among the most serene, purely atmospheric and non-threatening of Roach and Obmana's recorded work together, and was originally presented in the Ascension Of Shadows 3-CD box set, which was subtitled "Meditations For the Millennium".
The intentions for creating a place of solace for what the artists were sensing, with the approaching anticipation of the year 2000 and beyond, feels especially potent and nourishing when heard now.

Artist: Steve Roach + Vidna Obmana 
P: 2009
Out of print and hard to find, Spirit Dome and Live Archive are re edited in a double-cd set by the label. An excellent initiative which gives a second chance to discover this strange collaboration between the American western synthesist with Belgian multi- instrumentalist Dirk Serries, alias Vidna Obmana. Strange collaboration? Certainly! And you have to hear this surprising Live Archive to understand to seize all the dimension of my statement. Recorded in concert during European and American tours at the end of the 90s, Live Archive is a collection of eight tracks which fit in a long musical piece to heterogeneous tones that float in the hazes of a sweet ethereal synth. A strange artistic association which forms a pure sound fantasy where infiltrates the ramparts of darkness with the musical corridors as strange as charming. Live Archive is very different and more woken up than Spirit Dome; a more serene album which always exploits the suspicious meanders of an always unknown universe, but with a more poetic sweetness, stigmatizing the disturbing sound monument whom is Live Archive. It is in the room 314, on the night of May 24th, 2002 that the duet Roach / Obmana improvised Spirit Dome. A musical communion in the heart of the sleepy blackness of Philadelphia, which depicts admirably well the chemistry that lights up the sound ascent of two artists to convergent artistic ideals. Divided into eight segments Spirit Dome espouses the somber crepuscular movements with a light underground lapping which gives life to Spirit Dome I's intro. Quiet, the movement progresses following the wisdom of its delicacy, with a soft hollow breath which waves by following the smooth walls of a subterranean grotto which blazes from the iridescent specters of rattlers and other jumping insects which glide in this fanciful universe.

Artist: Steve Roach + Vidna Obmana 
P: 1995
When the habits of logic evaporate in the trances of an unbridled sun, you begin to recognize the things your eyes prefer to hide. From American composer Roach and Belgian prodigy Obmana comes this new collaboration, articulating its own secret world, a dimension beyond the limits of classification such as "atmospheric" and "tribal-ambient" often employed to describe these artists. Well of Souls is a double CD set with each disc exploring the nuances of two very different yet interconnected perspectives -- a world that simmers with meaning during the day and whispers a whole set of other insights at night. Taken together, these pieces bring to life a multi-faceted, continuously evolving portrait of those things which the eyes like to hide but the heart longs to embrace.

Artist: Steve Roach & Vir Unis
P: 1999
On this project, I set out to create a perfect blend of searing, light-filled soundworlds of relentless beauty merged with a constantly shifting interplay of "mandala grooves" that never overwhelm the atmospheres, taking the music to a high place. For me, it's the answer to the question of balance between the two dynamic elements in my music that are always calling me deeper. It's also a fitting metaphor in day to day life as well: the motion of momentum and the call to repose. I feel like this one came together in all the right ways, with the build to "Touch the Pearl", "Realm of Refraction" and "The Luminous Return" expressing a quality of emotions that I have been reaching toward for years.

1999 Steve Roach

Artist: Steve Roach
P: 2013
AT THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING documents a peak moment in Steve Roach's live concert odyssey in Europe over a ten-year span. Recorded at the E-Live festival in The Netherlands, 2000, it represents the zenith of that period in his deep organic / tribal ambient sound, fused with a vibrant core of trance grooves and sequencer passages, shamanic electronic and atmospheric soundworlds. The entire concert is taken to the next level with guests Vidna Obmana on fujara (overtone flute) and Jeffrey Fayman on frame drum. The interaction on "Apparition Collaboration" especially shows the spirit of riding the edge, with Steve on didgeridoo and Vidna Obmana on fujara in full bloom. AT THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING is volcanic in its expression of the power of sound and the spontaneous, focused energy drawn from the moment. Equally impressive is the dynamic serpentine set as it emerges from what feels like the near future. Truly music for the time of now, as we are at the edge of everything.

Artist: Frank Quasar, Patrick Kosmos
Venja, Symbian u.a.
P: 1995
The belgium label Art For Ears produced 3 samplers during the 90s, which showed the current stand of belgium ambient music. The well known artists gave new tracks for the collections and it is still a very good review of the belgium Ambient scene at that time.

Here the last copies!

Artist: Vidna Obamana, Steve Roach,
Thom Brennan
P: 1997
This is the Projekt rerelease of the 3 limited Amplexus CDs, which came out 3 years earlier and had been soon sold out.

Artist: Vidna Obamana, Vir Unis,
Steve Roach u.a.
P: 1999
An electroacoustic journey through the vast soundscapes of the imagination where ideas converge and evolve into passionate harmony.
All tracks unreleased and unavailable elsewhere.
Produced in August, 1999.
Track 1 - Recorded and mixed at the Serenity Studio, Belgium, May 1999.
Track 2 - Composed and recorded in The Living Room, May 1999. Special thanks to Jean Larson.
Track 3 - In The Bubble Music, BMI 1999.
Track 4 - Conceived, composed, performed, and produced in the Shadowland, 1999. Special thanks to Patricia Rongstad, and Judith.
Track 5 - Recorded at Dark Harbour Studios, June 1999. "For my wife. While she might not always understand my music, she always understands me."
Track 6 - Created in the Timeroom, Tucson Arizona. (c) 1999 Soundquest Music, BMI. Special thanks to Vidna Obmana and Nathan Larson.
Track 7 - Created and mixed in The Living Room, June 1999.
Track 8 - Recorded in the House of Miracles, December 1998.

Artist: Vidna Obamana, Brannan Lane,
Robert Carty, Zero Ohms u.a.
P: 1997
This is the projekt of ambient collaborations with all new tracks by the listed artists.

Artist: EM, Rhomb,Steve Roach, Mollusk u.a...
P: 2002
Subtitled "A Foundry Anthology," this collection serves as a retrospective over the first five years of Foundry CDs. Disc one samples FOU.01-06 as well as a re-recorded version of Rhomb's Above the Earth. Disc two samples FOU.11-14 & 16, and includes seven non-album tracks from eM, Mollusk, Dean Santomieri, Seofon and Jonathan Hughes.