The sounds of apocalypse #1 - (Issues with Hala Strana’s These Villages)
By: Yaya | in: Uncategorized |
Hala Strana is the brainchild of the multi-instrumentalist Steven R. Smith, known for his membership in the fabulous band Mirza (The great, late 90’s neo-psych band).
In this project, Smith brings to life his passion for eastern Europe traditional folk music (Czech, Romanian, Hungarian), and using endless layers of bizarre instruments - the music is created.
In his previous album (actually, a double album contains two early releases), Smith played rather traditional folk music, while covering true trad. alongside to the new original (yet sounds like authentic). It’s a bit like A Hawk and A Hacksaw, but far more dark and disturbed.
These Villages is a whole different story. Smith extends the boundaries of his own creation and gives a new definition to that style, when he reaches to the more abstract and hallucinatory edges of the music. The album is minimalistic and amorphic then his previous work.
His influences are blurred by a tapestry of drone irritating sounds of bowed guitars (sometimes sounds like a Sarod). He also plays Harmonium, cello, bouzouki, harpsichord, accordion, violin, waves, sea shells, and many other conventional and unconventional instruments.
Through the whole album, there’s a great sense of raga music, but less spiritual then usual. Raga isn’t a simple music, it requires time and concentration from the listener while digging deep into the listener’s soul, but it reaches to the the most sincere places and causes a meditative state of mind. Smith’s raga is a whole different story. It bugs you, it’s unpleasant, sometimes almost annoying, doesn’t keep an eastern authenticity throughout the whole album, and brings Smith’s experience as a member of the Jeweled Antler Collective into his attempt of creating musical escapism that draws the landscapes of different eras, of small villages and peasants and wells, loads of wells.
Seven tracks after the album began and caused you this unpleasant feeling, comes a short rest to the average ear when a sort of a half-sax/half-trumpet instrument plays a relaxing melody with gentle bells and a piano high noted key that runs through a delay (Nepdal Tarogaton).
In Smith’s world, even the pause in the madness has to be poetic and bizarre.
In Peal, along with the tribal percussion, there’s a dense distortion layer that brings back to mind another past project by smith - Thuja.
The last couple of years brought a great interest in the non-western culture. Even within Europe, the east got famous. We had a Balkan wave, a Klezmer wave, the Polka wave (all of them, of course are alternative. alt-klez, alt-balk, alt-polk). Endless bands suddenly digged in their parents’ old wooden boxes and discovered scratched 78” of local minstrels of a small village in Uzbekistan and decided to pay their respect to the music. We had enough of that. What we really needed was a guy like Smith to bring his own interpretation and skip the “alt-” definition while moving in giant steps to the “experimental-” titles. This is what makes this album so unique. You can see that he’s coming from somewhere, you’re just not positively sure where he’s coming from.
Another unique quality of the album, is that it has not pauses between tracks, which gives the musical creation a complete story (or “opera”) concept.
The beautiful drawing on the cover is from 1493 and the music has its influence in that era, but the funny thing about it, is that Smith owes a great deal to modern technology for allowing him to record layers of music thanks to the multi tracking system available everywhere.
I bought this album in second hand, and it’s easy to understand why someone had given up on it. It’s a very challenging album and unmercifully. But, once it grows on you, it becomes one of these albums you won’t listen to on a daily basis, and keep it for special occasions. Just like you do with White Noise’s Electric Storm or Fursaxia’s albums.
In the end of the day, this is the true acid/free/alt-folk. All the rest are mainly anties with a harp.
Listen : Nepdal Tarogaton
Peal
Buy, directly from the artist : Official website
Buy, digital : Emusic
Your comments are always welcome.
Posted on April 8, 2008
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