Fall in Mountains

What's striking about this album is how different it is from any other music currently coming out of Poland. It's one man's personal exploration of the country's forgotten tradition of itinerant ballad singers. The bards accompanied themselves on hurdy-gurdy and in Jarek Adamów's minimalist approach the hurdy-gurdy accompaniment is rarely more than a drone. Adamów also plays clarinet and he opens Fall in Mountains with a slow introductory improvisation to create a sense of space and stillness. He follows it with ‘Return from Turkish Captivity’, a long ballad with hurdy-gurdy drone and an accompaniment on drums. It will mean more to those who understand Polish but even as pure music it has an inexorable power as the drum patterns become more insistent.

After a pastoral flute interlude, the next ballad, ‘Beautiful Soul’, is a religious song with lyrics about the rich laughing at the poor and a full, almost organ-like hurdy-gurdy melody. The album's highlight is ‘Our Lady of Gidle’, a beautiful melody which Adamów remembers his grandfather singing. The final two tracks here take a different direction, with klezmer melodies on hurdy-gurdy and a slow tune written by the famous late klezmerist Dave Tarras and played on clarinet.