Tales From Across the Water

Multi-instrumentalist Griselda Sanderson's third instrumental album, following 2008's Harpaphonics, and 2015's Radial, offers a musical hand of friendship and connection to the cultures and communities of continental Europe in the years since the 2015 Brexit vote. It starts with ‘Orange Grove’, a piece inspired by the polyphony of 16th-century, Sevillano composer Alonso de Mudarra, while the headily evocative flourishes of ‘Pomer Oro’ are redolent of their Macedonian origin. The beautiful ‘Carillon’ features her otherworldly nyckelharpa, plus homemade lyre and xylophone, and draws on Lithuanian sutartine (polyphonic voices).

Each of the 12 pieces evoke their origins – whether Cretan, Norwegian, Hungarian, French or Italian, and the instrumental styles and textures are as varied, extending continent-wide from Hardanger fiddle to tambura via a range of viols, violas, guitars, fiddles, lyres and bells. Sanderson alone employs 12 different instruments, with support from multi-instrumentalist Louis Bingham, bassist Joe Sanderson (her brother), Soufian Saihi on oud for the closing ‘La Patella’ and uilleann piper Zingo Warde on the Irish set, ‘The Naomhóg at Albaola’. Sanderson's hammering of piano strings with a wooden beater, combined with more conventional piano work, makes for a haunting meditation on the Roma-inspired, Hungarian airs of ‘Cimbiano’, music that's vivid and cinematic enough to conjure whole movies in your head.