Leo Rec.
Sainkho Namchylak & Dickson Dee : Tea Opera (RU/UK,2009)****
Every album of Sainkho Namchylack is a different world, a different story, a different inspiration. This time it is dedicated to Chinese tea culture. On my first listen it sounded more abstract than that, but the expressions still start extremely visually, like an expression of something a few stages higher in the ethers but still looking down to the landscape. The electronic, rather ambient organically moving textures are one of two layers in the expression. Sainkho sounds first like a women working and singing in that landscape. The movements of the instrumental parts includes its own processes too, and includes a few digital ticks, and ever changing loops. Listening closer, on story 1, some sounds could have derived from a working plant, echoing to something more abstract from that much higher vision, in space. On the second track based upon bowl-like sounds and digital loops with tiny bit clicks this is more rhythmical. The improvised ‘village singing’ here includes a chicken sound too. The third track is much more moving and extreme with live electronic interventions, and shows a much more experimental voice, including a rhythmical throat clicking process. The fourth story starts with throat singing, improvised singing, strange loop rhythms, and reveals a much more abstract world of improvisation. At some stage Sainkho becomes freightening with her voice saying words like “RES!”, as if she’s able to do things with her voice (in a shamanic way) if she really wanted to. More and more the electronic parts create their own world away from a landscape, becoming more active. In this activity Sainkho’s voice improvises first with a high noted voice, human singing and shamanic throat singing with a deep bass range. These expressions remain minimal and effective. The 6th story is even more abstract a world on its own, away from its first expression. By the time of the 7th story, the electronic is much more clearly a live electronic expression keeping its organic power, at the same time it becomes alive, away from the general landscape it became like nature in it, or even like a beast and like the wind, where Sainkho seems to react with brilliantly, first on top of it, findings its natural rhythms in between, expressed by throat breath clicking rhythms, or like a much more gentle beast, a ghost and bird at the same time, very controlled, very aware, where she not only interacts, but also seems to control the energy and the harmony in the situation.
One of the most accessible albums by Sainkho, recommended. BUT it’s best to hear on good equipment where you can hear the vital inner range and depth of sounds, not just peaks and contrasts.
