If we’re fortunate to stay lengthy sufficient, we make lovely reminiscences that warp and splinter and, ultimately, fade away utterly. Merope, the Lithuanian-Belgian experimental folks mission led by multi-instrumentalists Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė and Bert Cools, faucets into that pretty devastation on Vėjula. The duo approaches every sound with reverent curiosity, arranging their songs with the care of somebody designing a shadowbox. Every pattern loop, synth gurgle, and vocal snippet sits simply so, glowing when the sunshine catches and gently fading like late afternoon solar. It’s a softly commanding file, not constructing a world as a lot as revealing one. There’s at all times a lot to note, nevertheless it’s almost unimaginable to take all of it in directly.
Vėjula is Merope’s fifth album, however first to completely embrace their diaphanous, New Age-y inclinations. The band started as an EU-spanning “different world music” quintet, utilizing acoustic devices, gentle processing results, and smooth jazz prospers to conjure light pastoral groovers. Merope whittled to a trio for 2018’s naktės and 2021’s Salos, reinterpreting Lithuanian folks songs with heavier use of electronics and, within the case of Salos, a 24-person chamber choir. Jurgelevičiūtė and Cools made Vėjula as a duo, however invited collaborators like Shahzad Ismaily, Laraaji, and Invoice Frisell into the fold. Talking to the Bozar Centre for Effective Arts in Brussels, Cools described the method behind Vėjula as an train in presence. “You by no means know while you’re going to discover a track. It could possibly be in one thing very small,” he defined. “It’s magic.”
The constructing blocks of any Merope composition are Jurgelevičiūtė’s vocals and kanklės, a zither-like Lithuanian stringed instrument whose sonorous shimmer was historically related to safety from demise and evil spirits. Right here, Jurgelevičiūtė and Cools appear extra within the textural prospects than the classical folks context. Each components get their very own, unadorned moments within the highlight—Jurgelevičiūtė’s mournful melodies on “Lopšinė” (Lithuanian for “lullaby”), the radiant rippling of the kanklės-only “Vija”—however extra typically, they’re spliced into tesserae and arranged into glittering mosaics. On “Aglala,” filtered microsamples of Jurgelevičiūtė’s voice tumble over one another earlier than plunging beneath a thick synth drone, often bobbing to the floor for air. Kanklės samples flicker within the background of “Spindulė,” wavering out and in of focus like scraps of overheard dialog. The recontextualization is impressed, threading the outdated world to the brand new with out shedding any mysticism within the course of.
