Hector Zazou & VA - Songs From The Cold Seas (1994)

[mitsumi]

Hector Zazou & VA - Songs From The Cold Seas (1994)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 287 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 115 Mb | Scans ~ 60 Mb | 00:50:36
Downtempo, Ambient, Experimental, Alternative | Label: Columbia | # CK 67068

A smorgasbord album, the cast list includes Bjork, Siouxsie Sioux, Brendan Perry, and long-term sidekick Barbera Googan. As expected, the mood is cold, often somber in tone. Only on "The Long Voyage," a springy ditty fronted by Suzanne Vega and John Cale, does the album ascend from the depths. Some of the gloom works, like in "Havet Stomar," a brilliant slow burner with B.J. Cole's pedal steel guitar and ECM artist Lene Willemark's chilling howls. "Annukka Suaren Neito" presents what must be the closest to an Eskimo rap you can get. Mark Isham provides freestyle trumpet that almost sounds like seagulls swooping the skies. The Jane Siberry-fronted "She Is Like the Swallow" is a beauty, as soft as it is light. Hector Zazou's electronics are in fine check too. The canvas expands to new textures, such as metallic percussion in "Adventures in the Scandinavian Skin Trade."

It's hard to categorise Zazou. He tends to make concept albums with a dazzling array of guest vocalists and musicians, and he's a bit like a French version of Peter Gabriel, crossed with Enya, but with more of an edge. 'Cold Seas' uses a mixture of electronics and ethnic music to illustrate a journey around the arctic waters of the northernmost Atlantic. It's all about atmosphere - in this case, stark and cold, with a vivid impression of a boat gliding through ice floes. It reminds me in places of Philip Glass' 'Glassworks', a similarly icebound venture.

This was quite popular in the UK at the time, mostly because of Bjork's presence as a guest vocalist - as with the majority of the album, her song is not sung in English, which just adds to the impression that we are not in Kansas. The Suzanne Vega / John Cale contribution bobs along, with Cale deadpanning his section of the vocals, and it's nice to see Siouxsie Sioux getting out and about.

The packaging fits, too - it has lots of stuff about the individual artists (which is useful for broadening your horizons), and the text on the back cover is silvery and only visible when held up to the light - which is nice.

Tracklist:

01. Annuka Suaren Neito [feat Värttinä] (4:52)
02. Visur Vatnsenda-Rosu [feat Björk] (4:21)
03. The Long Voyage [feat Suzanne Vega & John Cale] (5:53)
04. Havet Stormar [feat Lena Willemark] (5:55)
05. Adventures In The Scandinavian Skin Trade [feat Vimme Saari] (3:47)
06. She's Like A Swallow [feat Jane Siberry] (5:19)
07. The Lighthouse [feat Siouxsie] (3:41)
08. Oran Na Maighdean Mhara [feat Catherine-Ann MacPhee] (4:15)
09. Yaisa Maneena [feat Tokiko Kato] (6:15)
10. Yakut Song [feat Lioudmila Khandi] (3:33)
11. Song Of The Water [feat Kilabuk & Nooveya] (2:45)

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