Saz'iso

Many things drew me into listening to this album but familiarity with the music wasn’t one of them or even in the top ten.

Produced by Joe Boyd – you cannot ignore anything with that attached to it – and released on Glitterbeat – a label who have very rarely let me down. Endorsement by Ry Cooder didn’t hurt either.

So I cued the album up, expecting some klezmer with folky overtones, and found myself entranced by one of the most intense and heartstopping sounds I’ve heard in years.

There are traces of other Eastern European idioms but the way that Donika Pecallari and Adrienne Thanou’s vocals come out at you is something quite unique. You can hear the soul in their music, their love of their homeland and a real sense of understanding the core of their music. Aurel Quirjo’s violin and Telando Feto’s clarinet give the Eastern sense but the rhythms are almost Greek in their structure and the skittering flute and frame drum – Pellumb Meta & Agron Nasi – put images of dancing in your miond that just want to lift you up and swirl you around the room.

The music is also, sometimes, unbearably dark and sad – listen to a number such as ‘Nenocke’ and your heart becomes heavy with yearning for lost lands. ‘Valle Posternance’ has a sense of the thirties cabaret about it but it also shrieks of searching for a home.

The album is not a ‘normal’ experience. It is a profound and intense ride, drawing emotions out that you may have thought were well hidden. One of the best albums of the year – I’m not sure yet that I fully understand it but I have really enjoyed the ride.