Värav/ Vārti / Vartai

On this fabulous debut album from The Baltic Sisters, the four voices of Marion Selgall (Estonia), Laurita Peleniūtė (Lithuania), Vineta Romāne and Liene Skrebinska (both Latvia) combine to create music of a powerful, otherworldly beauty. Initially brought together by a shared passion for traditional Lithuanian polyphonic songs known as sutartinės, the group’s album opener ‘Sesė Sodų’ sets up an exquisitely hypnotic wave of interlocking melodic lines, with the voices bouncing off each other to produce an almost bell-like quality. From the repertoire of the Latvian traditional singer Domicella Līpeņa, the captivatingly sung orphan’s song ‘Soka Saule Rītiedama’ vibrates between solo voice and the most incredibly rich polyphony. With its narrow melodic range, seemingly endless canonic entries and atmospheric bird calls hovering in the background, ‘Ėjau Rytelia čiūta’ appears to exist outside of time. Other highlights include the swirling, multilayered ‘Svirtis Svira’ and the elemental strength of the Latvian folk song ‘Tumsīnā, Vakarā’.