Lyubov’ Svyataya (2004)
22 tracks, 59 minutes
Spotify ∙ iTunes
The music of the male voice chamber choir Doros is worth listening to for many reasons. A cappella music has the ability to be so powerful, touching in with our most primal brains in a way that instruments don't quite manage to. On top of that, their music is religious and represents a faith we hear relatively little about in this corner of the world: they are one of the premier groups performing sacred Russian Orthodox music today, to the point where they regularly perform in St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. Their mix of incredibly precise harmony and complex polyphony shows them as true masters of the art of the voice.
But as interesting, worthy and musically stimulating as all these points are, it's not what brings me back to listening to Doros' album. Instead it's for just one of their number: the okavist. I saw the group perform as part of an evening of sacred musics a few years ago in Berlin, and it was the first time I’d ever even heard of an oktavist, let alone heard one sing. For the uninitiated, an oktavist is a singer whose voice is an octave below a baritone. That is very, very low. So low it sounds inhuman, creating more of an otherworldly rumble than clear tones. It is absolutely mindboggling, and chest-quivering too.
When Doros sing as a full septet, they sound like a mighty church organ, with every layer of pitch accounted for. You should definitely give them a listen; you may be transported to a higher plane, you may hear angels dancing between the harmonies, or, at least, you may hear a human sound quite unlike you've ever heard before.
No comments:
Post a Comment