This is some of the best late-night listening I’ve heard in a long time. Neither Jeff Gburek nor Karolina Ossowska ever fail to please my ears, whether it be with a deep intellectual piece or compositions which teeter on the edge of being mournful, but this one deserves a special place in the collection. From Jeff’s Bandcamp site:
“Inspired in part by a recent renaissance in listening to dhrupad and other music of the Indian subcontinent and early European music, I transformed my standard GDR zither into a swarmandal, developing a full moon raga scale. When I invited Karolina to play with me, we discovered the violin had to drop half a step or so deeper to catch the root tone. The dynamics became more concrete as other voicings defamiliarized our instruments, necessitating fresh improvisational approaches. Microphones were set up close to catch textures and accentuate acoustic timbres. I played the zither with my bare fingers, a folded paper-towel, sometimes a plectrum, a glass jar became a make-shift slide as I’d left my guitar slide behind accidentally and the e-bow is introduced mostly on the sly, where it’s not entirely obvious. Recorded in the village of Głęboczek, Podlasia, near the Bug river on December 25th and 26th (full moon), 2023. Thanks to our hosts Krystoff Lang and Katarzyna Król Modrak.”
