Sul Filo

Iva Bittová has been pushing the boundaries of East European music for almost 30 years, her voice and violin (and also on this disc, mbira) borrowing from traditional Eastern European folk and Romani music as well as from Western rock and experimental sounds. Here, on this live recording, she teams up with Paolo Angeli, an Italian musician who plays the Sardinian guitar and provides some vocal backup.

Together they create sparse, atmospheric music where Bittová's powerful voice hangs in the air while Angeli creates elemental tones on his instrument. This is drone music of sorts with Bittová pushing her voice to suggest birdsong, hysteria, animal grunts and much more while Angeli stays in the background, drawing out long notes, building up to sheets of sound like what you might expect from My Bloody Valentine. There is also percussion but no credit is given as to who is playing such. As a performance piece this must be very impressive – as a home listening experience, well, I found myself fascinated by the duo's ability to make an art music of great power, but this is surely far better experienced in concert.