Astrakan Project: Inês

This latest release from Alves & Gourvil's Astrakan Project is an album of nine songs with an accompanying illustrated book based on a tragic Portuguese medieval love story. The concept is unique and highly creative. The book – containing artwork by Simone Alves – is striking, detailed and very beautiful. It invites the listener to question how else music can be listened to and consumed. The accompanying instrumentals, all co-arranged with Yann Gourvil, are also deeply evocative and stirring, carrying Breton, Portuguese and Turkish influences along their vibrations. However, the vocals remain largely in the same extended and deeply sombre tone throughout, making the listening experience somewhat flat. Though the lyrics are thoughtful (also featured and translated in the book), a more dynamic sense of drama could have been incorporated into the vocals – the nuances of love, loss and sadness are infinite, after all.