Reviews by kuvien

I guess what I love most about this album is how the delicate, yet passionate progressive folk is punctuated by short spoken-word poetry bits. It makes one feel as if one is at an intimate live performance in some out-of-the-way salon / bar / coffee shop, just Kalugin and a small group of friends. This album consists of four poetic recitations and five musical pieces, and throughout one is aware of the fire always simmering, intensified into moments of blazing most often with the addition of distant, mystical female voices. Without understanding Russian the listener can enjoy this ever-changing fire. With the lyrics, new worlds of mythic and religious imagery open up.

This is the electronic space age pop film score to the 1981 Soviet animated movie, The Secret of the Third Planet, wherein the protagonists embark on an expedition through outer space to collect rare animals for the Moscow Zoo. They collect a talking bird at some point, so that might explain the birdsong here and there.

An excellent debut, not as polished as their later releases, and very much steeped in the local folk customs. Some electrifying drone moments with hints of throat singing, and of course so many Slavic and West African instruments evocatively played. Apparently some of these tracks were used in stage productions of Shakespeare in Ukraine. Though DakhaBrakha's later releases are more festival friendly, some of these tunes are downright freaky and pagan -- you know what? I bet if you listen you can pick out what track is the witches in Macbeth. Though this term hasn't been adopted by English-speaking music nerds, this genre of music is, supposedly, called ethno-chaos.

This is gripping folk, sounding real and raw yet accessible. It simultaneously haunts and inspires. Strangely, it's even got a rather catchy singalong aspect to it. Weird, I know, but there it is. Guess it makes the band big at outdoor summer musical festivals, eh?

This band excels at blending the traditional and the modern, a feat so often fumbled. There's even a bit of a toe-dipping into hip hop with their track "Carpathian Rap", the backbone of the accompaniment, of course, still being traditional instruments. This album has a little bit of everything, from full, lush folk pop tracks with strong, enveloping percussion to sparse, experimental spoken-word playfulness. And the way those ladies sing, with those trills and their tight, polyphonic singing... music to come back to again and again. These people know how to make a fun album because they know how to have fun while making it.

A satisfying blend of Hungarian folk inspiration and lush, soothing electronic soundscapes, just the kind of thing I love for a quiet, late-night chill listen when it's done right.

I don't even know what to make of this one. It's jazz-rock, sure, more than anything else, but it's all that Turkmen traditional music that's confusing me. What the hell is even going on here? Is this an amazing album? Not really. But it's pretty great, mostly because of all the blending going on, as the modern world meets the old, as east meets west. The vocals are rich and beautiful, the music meandering and mysterious. *lowers sunglasses* We're gonna bring in the dutar, the ghaychak, and the tuiduk.

Musically, this album is Sputnik, spherical but quite pointy in parts. Vocally it’s swaggering, bells-and-whistles rock and roll.

The press release really nails the sound of this album: "Jazz aesthetics in compositional development, elements of avant-garde conceptualism and neoclassicism, folklore roots in subtly nuanced vocals - this is what makes up...the essence of Polite Refusal's music". Free, confident vocals, intimate but not uncomfortably so; smoky nightclub piano; wailing fiddle leaping like unruly flames through reggae-tinged rhythms.

This one is all about mystery, of walking through bare-branch forests, of stepping on icy rocks across swift streams. The vocals are the cries of the lonely, frozen earth, recitations from ancient texts.

One of those rare albums that walks the tightrope between what I like and what I dislike. And after the performance? I take the rope and hang myself with it.

What happens when you travel halfway around the world to play music in NYC? Meet up randomly with other musicians at live houses and concerts and take the opportunity to collaborate. There's not much time, though, so a lot of what you lay down in the studio isn't really rehearsed or planned ahead of time. Do each song in only a couple takes, and just let all the musicians improvise and play how they feel on each track. You know--however the mood strikes you. It all sounds so easy, doesn't it? Maybe it is for expert, veteran musicians such as these guys. Ribot, of course, shines, having just picked up on the songs as they were going.

A staggering rock waltz through a carnival, with a certain spin-around feel to the whole thing. No, spin again. Keep going. Getting dizzy? The sounds and lights swirl around you, and a bit of everything gets through. Federov and Volkov are here to take you for a giddy ride.

This is part of my collection as a musical artifact, optimistic music from a 60s USSR that thought its future was bright. The sky was the limit, and in the sky floated space-age lounges filled with this kind of music.

Trying to figure out why it reads "wireless non-state" on the cover art. Wireless because it's the radio, sure. Non-state... maybe a non-sanctioned pirate signal defying the Soviet state?

An anthology of home recordings the band had made in the years before this publication, so it's a simple, acoustic affair with voice, guitars, flute, and sparingly-used strings. Quite accessible, lacking in the off-the-wall drunk experimentation often found in Russian folk.

A brilliant, playful take on blending Russian funeral songs, military marches, and Slavic Christmas songs, this album has a 34-minute runtime, despite it being 16 songs. That says a lot about this music right away. And if you're not interested yet, kazoos and sound effects are listed more than once in the liner notes.

A lovely, rustic album with an open-air feeling created by the soft percussion and the soaring flutes. Lovely melodies, bright acoustic guitar work, soothing psychedelic vocals. A hidden gem!

The album title translates to "truck". Hmmm. And finding a translation to these lyrics online isn't an easy one-click affair. The music is naked and old, and it seems to deal a lot with the conflation of religion and sexual relations, and the emptiness of both.

The album's title translates to "The Orchard of Madness", which explains the cover art. I love so much the way this album sounds (though I don't understand the lyrics) that I decided to do a little digging and learned not only that the singer-songwriter "was briefly imprisoned and beaten for his political convictions by the Greek military junta of 1967-1974", but that he wrote some of the songs for this album while in prison. One of the songs particularly deals with his prison experience. Savvopoulos tells the story of this album's composition [https://www.lifo.gr/articles/music_articles/245898/pos-egrapse-o-dionysis-savvopoylos-to-perivoli-toy-trelloy,here].