Author: Kim Burton
View album and artist detailsArtist/band: |
VARIOUS ARTISTS |
Label: |
Skani |
Magazine Review Date: |
April/2021 |
Throughout their history the peoples of the Baltic have, sometimes at great cost, maintained their national and cultural identities, in efforts strongly tied with music as a core celebration of shared identity and a shared enterprise. This movement was especially marked in the years before World War II, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and Latvia is no exception. The title of this compilation points to this conscious interweaving of musical, ethnic and spiritual identities. As in other Baltic nations, conversion from pagan religions occurred late, and so references to animism and paganism are common in national discourse and in the musical repertoire.
On the evidence of this collection, Latvian folk and re-imagined avatars of folk have already established a closely determined but flexible sound-world – of the plangent kokle (zither), women's voices in close harmony, flutes and pipes – capable of taking on multiple guises. Of 12 groups and individuals featured here Songlines readers will be familiar with the long-established Iļġi, Auļi and Tautumeitas, but there are fascinating offshoots too, from the opening electro-acoustics of ZeMe to the mystic wanderings of the closing ‘Sunrise’ by Karlis Rudra Jirgens by way of evocative string arrangements, and massed pipes and drums.
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