The Ritual Sphinx – Nyx

Written, recorded and produced by The Ritual Sphinx (Alessandro Bartolena) between 2022 and 2024, Nyx is an experimental electronic music concept album. After the EP Veins (EVES music, 2019), the artist expanded his research with FM synthesis, pushing towards a strong formal structuring.

Inspired by the figure of the Greek god of the night – Nyx –, the sequence of tracks describes an imaginary excursion into the celestial darkness intended as a divine creature. According to the myth, Nyx is the mother of twins: Hypnos and Thanatos, Sleep and Death. The triad is understood by The Ritual Sphinx as the body of existence that always conceals within itself a mysteric side that requires a transformation to be experienced: first of all formal. Reading the myth in these terms is the root of the album’s inspiration. Played on antithesis (the cold and adventurous night, dramatic but also distant), the album finds its models in late romantic classical music as well as in more recent music, e.g. Klaus Schulze and Angelic Process.