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.