Cynfeirdd
Kinovia : Knjiga Pelinova (=Book of Wormwood) (SE,2008)****
I was told by someone who visited lots of countries that “Yugoslavia is the most beautiful country in the world”, but that country witnessed a kind of apocalypse, so that beauty has a different meaning now. Kinovia expresses that beauty, chamber-like acoustic music, in a comparable way to some of the new Russian chamber-folk groups I’ve reviewed before. This is beauty that faced that apocalypse, and that remembers their culture with some classical and folk experiences, but now can only make a new form of independent chamber-like music, with lyrics that recall poetry (-one poem of Ivan V. Lalic, “Upland” was an inspiration-), with faith after death as a silent witness that tries to make new connections, like possibilities for finding purposes beyond loss, uplifted by classical religious forms of endowment to music, without being so, with arrangements of bitter gothic piano and strummed guitar associations, but worked out like true classical inspired music that reveals improvisation skills. Just a few Balkan folk dance themes find their way with energy within more Baroque spheres. Very nice !
Limited to 500 copies.
Members on the album : Milos Miljkovic on guitar and keyboards ; Ljiljana Markovic on violin and vocals ; Nikola Urosevic on lead vocals ; Ana Markovic on flute ; Nikola Ilic on percussion ; Bojan Todorovic on double bass ; Vladimir Drobnjak on cello ; with gurest Jelena "Lence" Kevic on vocals ("Lelej").
