Precious Collection

The London-based klezmer duo of cellist Francesca Ter-Berg and violinist Flora Curzon return with the follow-up to their 2019 debut Unfurl. It’s another journey into the delicate, quirky and ethereal world of drones, discordant phrases and disparate traditions.

While the album is largely instrumental, both musicians also sing in Yiddish and down the strings to fiddle with bowed cymbals, extended piano techniques and found sounds. They are also joined by Simon Roth on Ukrainian poik (marching drum) and Ursula Russell on drums. The resulting menagerie of sound is at once modern, avant-garde and deeply traditional. There’s an overall meditative quality, enhanced by the spare sound. This is not a wall-of-sound production. Instead the instruments are plucked out of a pervading silence.

Moving between North America, Eastern Europe and their UK home, they draw on archive recordings and old manuscripts like a pair of treasure hunters, repurposing to their own musical ends. It’s certainly not chart-bait, but for the patient listener, there’s a dreamy, half-remembered charm to the whole experience.