Forest Bathing

The partnership of violinist Heather Trost and accordion and percussionist Jeremy Barnes has moved from indie-leaning beginnings through to fully fledged Greek traditional tunes and Balkans village music over the course of several albums. Forest Bathing consists entirely of original material steeped in influences from Bulgaria and Istanbul. ‘Alexandria’ trips along daintily with pointy-toed Persian santur (dulcimer) from Barnes, while ‘The Washing Bear’ gets heads nodding with traditional Serbian trumpet and a gyrating off-kilter rhythm. However, ‘A Broken Road Lined with Poplar Trees’ is the first indication of the slightly odd instrumentation that marks out the album as distinct from its predecessors: flourishes from trilling organs and toy-like synthesizers that recall Tangerine Dream or the Stylophone of Joe Meek. This retro electronica works to admirably quirky and comic effect on ‘Babayaga’, complementing the cimbalom (zither) of Unger Balász to produce a 1960s spy soundtrack sound while also suggestive of the spindly legs belonging to the magic witch's hut in the folk-tale of Baba Yaga. But on ‘The Shepherd Dogs are Calling’ the combination of synthesizer pads and saxophone seems so purposefully mock-portentous, like 1980s library music, it sounds as if they might be paying a tongue-in-cheek homage to some specific strain of slightly cheesy East European music. It makes for a strange mix. Still, while the synth-strewn pieces are a little baffling, the good tracks here are indeed excellent.