Supra

Unaccompanied Georgian choral music has become hugely and globally popular among listeners and amateur singers, and there are plentiful examples of songs in that genre to be found in this whistle-stop tour of music from various areas of the country, all slightly different in style. However, other idioms are well-represented too, with perhaps the most attractive being the songs of the town tradition, almost Italianate, with guitar accompaniment and two voices harmonising in fluent thirds, which here avoid the cloying sentimentality that can sometimes creep in. ‘Kovel Sneulebaze’ is particularly fine, with even strangely Alpine echoes. And there are some splendid examples of antiphonal songs accompanied by the strummed panduri (three-stringed lute); the complex, shifting polyphonies of ‘Utsinares’ are fascinating here.

The strength of the album, however, is the power of the unaccompanied male voices, whether creating the rolling waves of sound of ‘Harira’ or the delicate muted tones that open ‘Varado’. A supra is a Georgian banquet, of some formality, and the aim of the group is to present music that might be heard at an idealised supra. There may be a whiff of the lecture recital about this, but it makes a fine introduction from a group worth catching live.