(Hidden Notes)
This spirited adventure in the avant garde is as experimental as it is accessible, delving into hot-blooded Sirba and Transylvanian epics
Yiddish, klezmer and eastern European traditional music are the energetic inspirations for Fran and Flora’s second album together, their first on Stroud-based new music label Hidden Notes. Cellist Francesca Ter-Berg and violinist Flora Curzon also compose with voices and electronics, and their album’s opening track, Nudity, announces their ambitious intentions. Plucked strings whip up a hot-blooded Sirba (a Romanian/Jewish 6/8 rhythm) against a high violin drone and a skittering vocal of the Meredith Monk school. A delirious, desirous mood ensues.
It’s a strangely accessible record. Wordless harmonies create immediate, even poppy effects on the Nign and Hold Me Close, which should interest fans of shimmery, alternative groups like Blonde Redhead and Stealing Sheep; they’re even Radio 2-friendly on the gorgeous Fishelekh Gefinen – To Catch a Fish, by Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Layers of sound are built up like a modern dance track before the drums, played by Snapped Ankles’ Ursula Russell, arrive with the heft of a hip-hop break.
