Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully cold and desolate, 2 Mar 2009
I can't think why I never reviewed this one earlier. There's a bunch of reviews on Amazon's US site including one from a friend of mine; but none here, and it's been one of my favourite CD's ever since I heard it. For a while it was unavailable in the UK but I hope you can buy it once more, because it will be one of the most unusual items in your collection if you do. Try it for dinner-party music, at least one of your guests will be curious about it, but it's equally suited to a solitary night in with rain and branches lashing at the windows.
Who's Hector Zazou? Don't worry about that, just read the list of collaborators: Suzanne Vega & John Cale, Siouxsie Sioux, Jane Siberry, Björk are the ones you'll have heard of, but there are others you probably haven't. It's an album of duets where only the guests sing: they duet with Zazou's music which is eerie, sometimes creepy, but always beautiful. Each track is a traditional folk-song from around the Arctic perimeter, arranged by Zazou with modern instrumentation: electric guitars, synthesisers and strings. "The Long Voyage" is catchy and the highlight of the album, whereas "Lacoute Song" sounds like the wailing of a woman who's just found the body of her husband washed up on the shore.
Hector Zazou unfortunately died just last year, so there will be no more fantastic and experimental music from him. But if this turns out to be a good buy for you, try "Strong Currents" as well, which is similar.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Arctic odyssey., 2 Jul 2009
I've owned this album since it was new in 1995, I picked it up by chance, attracted by the cover, and became increasingly intrigued upon flipping it over and reading through the list of guest artists. Who could this Hector Zazou person be, to have assembled so many musicians that I knew and loved: Bjork, Brendan Perry, Lena Willemark, Varttina...? I bought it on the strength of the guests present, and what a beautiful album it turned out to be.
The concept of this album was to explore the cold sea cultures around the top of the world through their folk music. The collection is dominated by Scandinavian and British traditions, but also includes Yakut, Ainu and Inuit songs. It would be too simplistic to simply describe the songs by their point of origin here, however, as in each case the final piece of music contains textures and ideas from further afield, always applied to great effect, and so, for example, Siouxsie Sioux sings a spooky excerpt from Wilfred Wilson Gibson's poem "Flannan Isle", about the actual mysterious dissapearance of the lighthouse keepers on that remote isle, but she is accompanied by a shaman from Siberia incanting a spell, Mark Isham on trumpet, two percussion ensembles, clarinet and electric guitars, alongside Hector Zazou's electronics. The result is powerful and unearthly.
My favourite songs here are the achingly beautiful, delicate "Visur Vatnsenda-rosu" sung by Bjork (one of my favourite three performances by Bjork); the dark and brooding "Havet Stomar" with Lena Willemark (again, one of my favourite examples of her singing, and an unusual setting for her with electronics and pedal steel guitar alongside her frequent musical partner Ale Moller on mandola); "She's Like A Swallow", sung with grace by Jane Siberry (this remains the only Jane Siberry song that I have connected with); and "Oran Na Maighean Mhara" sung by Catherine-Ann MacPhee (and once again my favourite performance by her).
Elsewhere Varttina sound typically prickly and dangerous on the opening song, which bears in like hail, down from the bleak north; Lioudmila Khandi sings hauntingly, echoing the desolate expanses of the Asian north; and the joiking Wimme sounds at home in Hector Zazou's setting, (in his solo work, and guesting with Hedningarna, Wimme follows similar paths weaving together ancient with modern).
Reading through the list of recording studios in diverse locations, you can see what an odyssey this labour of love must have been for Hector Zazou, so much travelling and organisation. And observation too, for he truly succeeded in painting beautiful pictures of these northern places with an artist's eye for detail and atmosphere.
Fans of any of the collaborating artists here should try and hunt down a copy and enjoy the sometimes unusual settings he placed their voices in. Lovers of the north, of cold windswept wilderness and moody seas might also wish to disappear into this music, travel with it to lonely places.
Hector Zazou had an amazing talent for evoking a sense of place, and luring magic out of the voices of his muses. His passing last year received little attention in the music press, but his craftsmanship was considerable, and his music will go on inspiring people lucky enough to encounter it.
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