Initially, kind of a hard listen from clearly competent musicians. Easier the more you listen, though, and second time I was already more accustomed to the style. Still, "Experimental//Weird" is what it is. Third time, I know what to expect. Mostly cello(?), vocals, and percussion—and I find it not too far-fetched to imagine also a couple of homebuilt instruments being used (the host, in Paul Rubenstein, mentions being an "instrument inventor/builder" in their artist description). Guest vocalist Anna Saskia demonstrates full control over her vocal chords, delivering what I would call clean singing (even when not) very much to my liking (nothing shrill about it, which is otherwise a pet peeve of mine). The album title, "invocations and evocations", is a perfect fit.
Later, people visiting from space adds percussion—also quite competently. This is Spacepeople, another constellation consisting of the host and percussionist Eveline Mueller-Graf. They sound a bit medieval with the drum and the tambourine(?) (or maybe one of those sticks or canes with small brass-clappers attached, like a tambourine, but in stick form, sometimes long enough to pound the ground—whatever those might be called).
Track #7, "divination at the forest altar" , delves into "haunted mansion"—if that was a musical genre—although never straying too far from a sort of "pagan noise-folk" (yep, pagan nose-foilk) from some undisclosed Eastern European country (I'm thinking maybe bordering Romania). I'm not sure about the language used, but it sort of sounds (mostly) Slavic(?). I'm also getting kind of emotional links to other, probably not relevant, stuff like flamenco or excentric painters from Catalonia. The intro of the first track sounds more like Hindu. I'm not a linguist, though, so probably talking totally out of my rear face.
The only change I would suggest is shortening the long silences at the end of each track. My ears find the contrast between sound and utter silence quite grating and I keep wondering if it's "all over now". This might be entirely intentional or totally on me. Imagine being out in the woods and suddenly the birds and trees around you all go silent. A cause for alarm. The contrast still feels off, though.
★★★
Footnotes:
- Sometimes, in old Christian paintings, the devil was depicted as having two faces, of which one was pointing backwards with the rear opening appearing in the shape of a mouth. Is this relevant? Verily. :)