Naktės (2018)
9 tracks, 53 minutes
Bandcamp ∙ Spotify ∙ iTunes
Now here is a particularly nice coincidence! Today’s album is from a group fronted by Lithuanian musician Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė – the very same Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė that made such lovely music on yesterday’s ‘album.’ Well, how many others do you know?
Merope are a trio whose music is based on traditional Lithuanian folk songs or – in the case of their own compositions – heavily influenced in that direction. But although that is the jumping off point, Merope themselves are decidedly not traditional. Indrė on the kanklės zither and song anchors them in the Lithuanian repertoire, Frenchman Jean-Christophe Bonnafous plays the bansuri flute from the Hindustani classical tradition and Bert Cools from Belgium contributes layers of guitars and electronics.
The group say of Naktės that it ‘presents a world full of wonder, inspired by the atmosphere of the night,’ and that certainly comes across. While the sound is very calm throughout, it often blossoms into the mystical and spectral, and there’s even something a little unsettling about it at times. The bansuri obviously brings an Indian edge, but it’s also used in a more freeform way, making sounds for their timbres as well as just their tones. The electronics also create this feeling, with sheets of hypnagogic noise that brings to mind the washed-out retro synths of vaporwave but in a more ambient context. And when the electronics turn their attention to the kanklės, processing the instrument’s twinkling strings, it echos the higher-plane-inducing sound of Laraaji. Altogether, the instruments and sounds coalesce and disperse like the Northern Lights, a soundscape rooted in place but with license to soar.
Naktės is Merope’s third album, but this is actually the first time I’d heard of them, and asking around, it seems like I’m not the only one for whom they’ve flown under the radar – and it seems like a popular album once people get it in their ears. So here you are then: this is Merope, they’re a good band and Naktės is a good album. And if you don’t know, now you know.
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