Where Water Meets Water: Bird Songs & Lullabies

From Tuva via Moscow to Vienna, Sainkho here visits abandoned islands in the Venetian lagoon, improvising lyrical vocal lines, soft and breathy, and occasionally accompanied by a steel hang, guitar or a plaintive plucked bass. Water only features prominently on the last two tracks, but Sainkho foregoes the language of her heritage throughout, replacing it with the ‘language of nature’ since, as Ted Levin's book reminds us, rivers and mountains sing back in Tuva. Only the last track takes listeners to the world of throat singing for which Sainkho is well known. Indeed, rather than overt references to Siberia this is a meditative acoustic set, foregoing overdubbing and intrusive editing, recorded by the Grammy-winning Ian Brennan.

A search and rescue party creates an incidental backdrop for the third track that at times sounds almost like bird song, and throughout the album Sainkho's improvisations react both to nature and to the built heritage of the islands: the fortress that fought off Napoleon, the haunted island where a ruined asylum stands, and an old pier where a fisherman is perturbed by her presence.

The notes describe this as a ‘visual album’, but I am unsure what such a description really means.