Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Wild Strings Trio
Label: Celinka
Released: 2016
Rating: 4.5/5
Wild Strings Trio is yet another offbeat project, and all the more interesting for it. This time, the ones »crossing« their instruments into a kind of musical passion play are Slovak musician Petra Onderufova (viola), French cellist Toby Kuhn and Slovenian guitarist Aleksander Kuzmič. Apart from three rearranged traditional folk songs of Balkan, more precisely Macedonian, origin, the album »Lost Weekend« is made up entirely of the trio’s own music.
The very combination of instruments, and even more so the musical backgrounds the trio’s members come from, geography included, hint that we’re in for a special musical adventure. Wild Strings Trio serve up an eclectic musical mix, marked by music that is entirely instrumental. This vivid musical macramé is woven from elements of neo-classical music and traditional folk melos (the trio most often turns to the Balkan peninsula for inspiration, but Celtic melancholy isn’t foreign to them either), while a dash of musical experimentation also stirs up jazzy associations. The three musicians develop an extraordinary, almost intuitive sense of each other across the material as they merge into this seamless, one-of-a-kind musical picture book. The way the three read each other is remarkable. The album »Lost Weekend« is a collection of incredible listenability, craftily garnished and seasoned with bursts of improvisation. These are always subordinate to the leading motifs, which keep the songs in a compact form, so the compactness of the compositions is never in danger, not for a single moment. The expressive musical power of this album is consequently extraordinary. The occasional rhythmic whirlwind, especially when the trio charges headlong into Balkan sentiment, will automatically push your soul and body into motion.
»Lost Weekend« is an album packed with passion and emotion. The trio responds to every stimulus with feeling, and the album is filled with a seething cup of wildly unbridled, playful performance, accompanied by exuberant playing. Then, in the next moment, the trio turns toward vistas of melancholy and yearning sorrow, as a string of sonic landscapes fades out across fields of gently mystical Celtic folk. Bathed in a glow of delicately sensual softness. Listening to the original song Snow Wolf, you’d think it was a rearranged traditional Irish or Scottish tune. The title track, meanwhile, presents in the best possible way the musical principle behind the visionary starting points of the trio’s creative sphere as a whole. In one place, it delivers an effective coexistence of all three basic genre elements of the trio’s musical fusion.
What fascinates is precisely this effective fusion of neoclassical elements with traditional folk melos and inventive bursts of improvisation, into a homegrown, self-grown musical blend that has no equal and that, in the performing fire this trio brings, never stops thrilling and entertaining. The trio never runs out of fire and performing dynamite. From the first second of this album to the last. Although the viola takes the central role, the cello and guitar also win themselves enough attention for solo adventures. The harmonizing of the sonic picture and its payoff are optimally exploited and filled out in the interplay of all three instruments. In that sense, »Lost Weekend« is an album you can’t add anything to or take anything away from. It simply sounds perfect.
No wonder »Lost Weekend« was recorded in the studio modeled on a live concert performance. The sentiment it radiates is therefore genuine, distinctive and, as a result, instantly seductive. That’s why »Lost Weekend« counts as an album of exceptional charisma, a polished musical calling card and artistic vision, one that, thanks to its uniqueness, its one-of-a-kind homegrown musical culture and its absolute sincerity, wins you over instantly.
Wild Strings Trio – Lost Weekend:
Lineup
Petra Onderufova – viola
Toby Kuhn – cello
Aleksander Kuzmič – guitar, hulusi on track no. 3
Production
Janez Križaj
Track list
1. Lost Weekend
2. Seven7
3. Snow Wolf
4. Dragon
5. Safe
6. Boljše
7. Basicovica
8. Kopanica (Gankino Horo)
9. Jovano Jovanke
