Lonely Hymns and Pillars of Emptiness

Conceived in isolation during the spring of 2020, this recording is the solo debut by multi-instrumentalist Iztok Koren (of Širom fame). Released on Takuroku, a new imprint from Cafe OTO that showcases music produced under lockdown, the melancholy and emotional intensity of the past year pervades this recording. Presented as six semi-improvised pieces, primarily for banjo, Koren's inspirations draw from Slovenian mysticism and the Chinese I Ching – the intention being to purge negative emotions unearthed by loneliness. Opener ‘Sometimes My Heart Bleeds for No Reason’ sets the tone, with Koren's cascading banjo rolls and chiming harmonics providing an appropriately stark vocabulary for his tumultuous internal landscape. ‘Fire is Armour’ introduces sparse field recordings, which serve to emphasise Koren's fascination with finer details and natural patterns. The 14-minute ‘The Plain Does Not Give Way’ is the album's centrepiece, revolving around bowed passages that give necessary contrast to the plucked opening tracks. These gnarled sounds evoke the asceticism of rural folklore, with Koren's playing taking on an almost shamanic quality. The piece contains a recording of a 2019 interview with Koren's uncle, who talks of dreams that portend a forthcoming apocalypse, before the track disintegrates into a wall of ambient textures. The album concludes with the sombre acoustic guitar piece ‘Eternal Autumn’, a fitting end to a raw and exposed document of a fraught and traumatic time.