Tento text nám pristál v maili z Británie. Nechávame ho tu – možno niekoho osloví, tak ako redaktora RnR Magazine UK oslovil náš album.
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„Its spirituality. Its peacefulness.“
“An intimate album of evocative poetry and combinations of sounds you’ve never heard before.”
“Delicate layers of sound like mist dissipating to reveal something beautiful beneath.”
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Celý text publikovaný v rubrike Continental Drift je nižšie, ak by ste mali chuť na pomalé čítanie.
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Slovakian band LONGITAL have long been a Continental Drift favourite. Over the last twenty years or so they have been entirely unpredictable, tireless innovators and have ploughed an utterly original furrow through the field that is music. Latest album Krajina Beží Dolu Vlastným Brehom ★★★★★ (The Country Runs Down Its Own Shore) (SLNKO RECORDS https://longital.com) may be their best release yet.
It is an intimate album of evocative poetry and combinations of sounds you’ve never heard before. The guitar-playing is rhythmically and melodically mesmerising. The electronica that accompanies it is otherworldly and beautifully strange. Some of the songs feel like delicate holds on reality that draw you into areas of imagination until they almost disappear, leaving you hanging in the air of your emotions.
It is the atmosphere of this record that binds it. Its spirituality. Its peacefulness. Its delicate layers of sound like mist dissipating to reveal something beautiful beneath that was there all along. It is more inventive than experimental. There are no
boundaries, no restrictions. Everything has a place, but that place is an exotic one where ancient Chinese strings are plucked in a duet with cutting-edge electronica. It feels like the band has scoured the Earth and the depths of their imagination to find the right sound to accompany each lyrical phrase. A jigsaw of beauty.
The opening half of the album features four intimate and tender love songs, exploring love of the inner self, love of life and love of another.
Opening track ‘Príd’ Za Mnou’ (‘Come To Me’) comes from a long line of songs that say, ‘I’ll be there for you,’ but it is so beautifully and articulately expressed that it leaves a warm and reassuring feeling in your heart. ‘Moja Radosť’ (‘My Joy’) is the kind of song that will mean different things to each individual listener.
It could evoke thoughts about somebody or something that makes you happy or you love but, equally, it might provoke other thoughts emerging from the centre of your heart and soul. Both songs have had extraordinary promotional videos issued that add mysterious visual, fairy tale elements to the music. Both videos are exceptional and definitely worth seeking out.
In the second half of the album the wider world begins to interfere with this intimate contemplation. There are warnings that not all is well in the world, that some elements of behaviour are toxic and darken the soul. The song ‘Slnko’ (‘The Sun’), is a Slovak interpretation of a work by American poet, Mary Oliver. It begins with a contemplation of the
beauty of a sunset, but ends with a dramatic twist, asking, ‘Or have you too turned away from this world / Or have you too gone crazy, for power, for things?’
I do wonder how much of this album is a response to our current times. Illuminating a path away from ugliness and aggression towards beauty. Showing there is an alternative way to live; that love is stronger than hate.
