Projekt Karpaty Magiczne with Zygmunt Stenwak - Water Dreams
(Fly)
After a trio of "ethnocore" releases (Ethnocore, Nytu, and Vak) which I've not heard, Poland's Magic Carpathians Project (an outgrowth of Atman, featuring multi-instrumentalists Anna Nacher and Marek Styczynski, bassist Tomasz Radziuk, and percussionist Janek Kubek) return with their seventh release, a collaborative effort with Polish-American photographer, Stenwak. Those photographs (in an accompanying 24-page booklet) are an integral part of the project (they were apparently positioned all over Radio Gdansk Studio, such that they were all the participants saw during the recording session), making the whole release similar in concept to Stars of the Lid's collaboration with painter Jon McCafferty (Per Aspera Ad Astra) from a few years back. However, that's where the comparisons end, for no one could possibly confuse the Texas duo's speaker hum with these Polish hippies' spiritually pastoral music, another fine entry in the burgeoning wyrdfolk movement, surely 2002s best kept musical secret.
The opening track, "Something You Can Hide In," features a shamanistic vocal performance from Anna that borders on spiritual possession. (It's no surprise that the topic of her workshop at the Network East-West conference on Women, Spirituality, and Yoga this past June focused on "Reclaiming Your Voice." The band also performed "Ancient Music from the Carpathian Mountains" during one of the evening programmes.) The tribal, percussive backing, occasionally accompanied by Marek's soft woodwind embellishments (on the Slovakian pastoral fujara), drags us into the holy sweat tent, where Anna's hypnotic chanting - sometimes in English, more often not—summons ancient deities of indeterminate origin. Haunting, elegiac, and eerily beautiful.
The rhythmic chock-a-blocks continue on "Distance" which makes effective use of the fujara to continue the disk's hypnotic atmosphere. The syncopated interplay between this pastoral woodwind instrument and Anna's Ono-like caterwailing makes this track remind me of a Kabuki theatre piece. Ultimately, a spooky Punch and Judy show, not for the squeamish or young at heart. "So Transparent" IS a fairytale...and a fractured one at that, as perhaps told by Nina Hagen, the vocalist whose range and unique delivery Nacher has most often been compared to.
Avant jazz skronk is the order of the day on "Triple Portrait," predominently sax and bass feeding off each other that will no doubt appeal to fans of 'Trane's acid period. Over Styczynski and Radziuk's freeform jamming, Anna does some free associating of her own in a tongue I'm not familiar with. I do know, however, that Polish is the loving tongue in which Anna relates "A Story part III." Now I'll be the first to admit that Polish is not exactly the most romantic sounding language, yet my English speaking brain still tries to unscramble the words and strangely draws me in to the song rather than automatically shutting down. Truly an example of the international language of music: despite not understanding the lyrics of the story that Anna is relating, I'm curiously drawn in to the interplay between her voice and the assortment of Tibetan liturgical instruments hammered dulcimer, tabla, tampura, djembe, doof, khol, and assorted hydjaks, gopishands, and rattles that make up the background music. (Most of these are on display in Marek's home, Galaria Stary Dom (the Old House Gallery) in Nowy Sacz, where he is a fourth generation inhabitant of the 150 year old house. It is here that Marek holds interactive musical workshops (such as "The Talking Meadow Workshop"), which demonstrate the usage of the many ethnic instruments he also employs on Carpathian releases, with a special eye (and ear) towards their relationship with the surrounding environment. The promotion of "ecological culture" is also the focus of the Stary Dom Association of Art and Education, founded in 1999 and presided over by its president, one Anna Nacher. For more info, visit www.starydom.art.pl/01glownaangielska.htm.)
Finally, a special mention of "Continuum" is warranted to call attention to guest Patrycja Kujawska's sometimes manic, gypsy-like violin playing, which manages the mean feat of borrowing several bars from the repetitive, staccato riff of Steven Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians," and deploying them in subtle nuances that recall the best of Godspeed You Black Emperor. Toss Anna's vocal exorcisms that range from a mantric "Om" to a Hindu call to prayer over the top and you've got a heady cauldron of unbridled estrogen just waiting to burst over your eardrums and down your spine. BIYO: There's a long line of female vocalists that employ their voices as an additional instrument in shaping their band's sound—from as far back as Yoko, through Liz (Cocteau Twins) Fraser and Lisa (Dead Can Dance) Gerrard, and on up to the current work of Christina (Charalambides) Carter, so Anna has a long heritage from which to draw inspiration. It is also that lengthy tradition that lends itself to a scholarly discussion of voice-as-instrument, and with Water Dreams, that discussion can no longer take place without acknowledging the importance of Anna Nacher to the vocal form and, in turn, it's importance to shaping the sound of The Magic Carpathians Project.
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