I really like most of Alio Die's music, particularly any time he uses medieval choirs and renaissance instruments.
This is really out of my league so I ask the question here: some of that, if not all, is sampled right?
Most likely he didn't emply a group of choir singers, and he may play instruments but a lot of the medieval music sounds like it may have been a previous recording that has been slowed down, distorted and with layers of effects and processing meshed in.
To me this is actually a neat idea, that of "recycling" that kind of music and if that's what Alio Die is doing, he does it like no other. The artist Diatonis has an album called The Convolving Universe that is just processed gregorian monks and choirs I believe, and it's similarly cool....
I wonder how one deals with copywright issues with this? If you distort something beyond recognition (at least in parts) and add your own effects, does it become something new? This is something that went on for years in Rap music before artists finally started demanding royalties, so just curious about this topic...