Divinities of the Earth and the Waters

Impish laughter, ethereal percussion and a lone flute open this pan-Slavic album, described – unusually – as the narrative to a man's visions of being burned as an effigy at a folk festival. The flute is quickly joined by Stravinsky-like clarinets and further wind instruments, mixing with atmospheric electronic sounds until, suddenly, the entry of rapid syncopated percussion and a sax riff with a brass section slowly emerges from the echoes. Eventually a female voice sings a Croatian folk melody while a jazzy flugelhorn solos around her, with drums propelling everything along.

This all happens within the space of about two minutes and is a taste for what is to come: an intense journey through musical tableaux. On ‘She Sowed Wheat’, sparse shamanistic drums accompany the incantations of two female singers and the hypnotic ostinatos of the woodwind. In the spacious ‘Pantheon’ we are reminded again of the arcane nature of this musical story by esoteric chanting and a lone female voice that seems to be maniacally channelling something from beyond. Traditional styles meld with high-octane fusion power here in a kind of stadium-folk hyper-jazz that everyone can enjoy.