Among the items on the ofrenda shown on the cover of Curandero, Portland artist SoRIAH’s new album with Steve Roach, a misshapen, skull-shaped object stands out: an ehecachichtli, better-known as an Aztec death whistle. Based on a flute excavated in the ’90s at a 14th century temple, the modern instrument can only guess at what its predecessor might have sounded like—but when it snakes into view on Curandero, accompanied by Roach’s sumptuous synths, it certainly sounds like the inevitable nipping at your heels.
“It’s a way to give homage and honor to the end of our time and everyone else that we know,” the artist says. “That’s the one thing that we all will have in common.”
Given the record’s preoccupation with death, it’s not surprising that SoRIAH got his start playing in goth bands. Born Enrique Ugalde in 1971 in Southern California, he studied Western classical singing in high school and college before the dark vision of bands like Bauhaus and Einsturzende Neubauten beckoned to him during his post-graduate years in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“I was in like eight bands,” the 54-year-old says. “Whatever weird musician I could get ahold of, I would just start playing with them. I was really just kind of stabbing in the dark for anything that stuck.”
Ugalde found his true calling when a bandmate made him a mixtape featuring Huun-Huur-Tu, the premier emissaries of Tuvan throat singing. This distinctive form of overtone singing, native to the small republic of Tuva in Siberia, enjoyed a fervent cult following among Western artists in the ’90s; the KLF featured it on their ambient house classic Chill Out, while the blues artist Paul Pena filmed the 1999 documentary Genghis Blues about his travels to Tuva in pursuit of his interest in the art form.
For Ugalde, who moved to Portland in 1996, throat singing became a driving obsession and a way to put his formidable vocal training to use within an experimental context.
“[Huun-Huur-Tu] came to the Aladdin Theater, and I muscled my way up to the front row of the theater and made a little bootleg recording just for myself so I could take it home and study it,” he says.
Ugalde sought out the group Chirgilchin in Sebastopol, Calif., and studied with them until he became arguably the preeminent non-Tuvan throat singer in the world. He now splits his time between Portland and Tuva, where his partner and son live, and where he placed third at the International Throat Singing Symposium’s competition in 2008—the highest honor ever given to a non-Tuvan.
Meanwhile, he developed a distinctive visual style centered on face paint and shamanic headdresses, often accompanied by thick clouds of incense. “I’ve always been interested in ceremonial theater,” he says. “I can make it a very dramatic experience, instead of just me going in my clothes and sneakers and doing my thing. It’s like going to church for me, essentially.”
The year after his victory in the Throat Singing Symposium, he signed to Projekt Records, a long-running label who first made their name putting out goth and darkwave music in the ’80s before shifting toward ambient music. One of their most eminent signees is Steve Roach, whose 1984 ambient classic Structures From Silence Ugalde came to know during his time as a massage therapist.
At the All Souls Procession, a Día de Muertos event in Tucson in 2023, Ugalde finally met Roach. The two began collaborating at Roach’s Timehouse studio in Arizona shortly thereafter, and they laid down the basic tracks for Curandero in three days. After that, Ugalde took the recordings back to Tuva to assemble into the finished work; another ambient legend, Robert Rich, did the mastering.
“The flow was just so easy,” Ugalde says. “It was so intuitive. What he lays down is such fertile ground for me. Within three days, we made pretty much everything that we needed for the album. He’s always very busy, so that’s all the time he had.”
The result is like being pulled into a vortex of sound for the better part of an hour. Ugalde stretches his voice into multitracked ribbons, sounding at times like a Moog Taurus synthesizer or like the didgeridoo of Aboriginal Australian artist David Hudson, who collaborated with Roach on a great run of music in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Meanwhile, Roach’s synths spread across the stereo field, his chords sour and searching, seeming to pose eternal questions about life and death as they roam and ruminate.
“It’s a window into the next world, a spirit world,” Ugalde says. “That’s just kind of where we live when we work.”
Daniel Bromfield has written for Willamette Week since 2019 and has written for Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, 48 Hills, and Atlas Obscura. He also runs the Regional American Food (@RegionalUSFood) Twitter account highlighting obscure delicacies from across the United States.
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SoRIAH and Steve Roach Make Ceremonially Theatrical Music – Willamette Week
