Oriental Mirrors

Romanian improvising unit Multumult have released four studio sessions, but this is their first live album, recorded at Bucharest’s Green Hours Jazz Cafe in 2016, the year after they formed. Its deeply ritualistic vibe evokes a dream-like pan-ethnicity operating outside of any particular time or place. It begins with unhurried hand drums and wordless vocal humming, sampled and layered into a whirling polyphony before Călin Torsan’s flute enters, drawing on nebulous North African folk modes and a touch of Turkish classical music. More live sampling swirls up eddies of flute, as though caught in an afternoon sirocco. This 48-minute journey could have been powerfully transporting if not for the frankly baffling decision to edit it into 11 short pieces with quick fades in and out. An additional 15-minute piece, entitled ‘Unşpe’, makes good, with clanking percussion, a sinuous, lower register reed and Victor Podeanu adding delicate shards of acoustic guitar.