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Written in fRoots issue 372, June 2014


VOLGA
Kumushki Pjut
Asphalt Tango CD-ATR 4814 (2014)

Moscow’s Volga, fronted by singer Angela Manukian, has released several albums since its 1999 debut, including a track on a Charlie Gillett compilation, but this is the first on an active foreign label, so likely to get more international attention.
     The present trio line-up places the traditional songs found from various Russian regions by Manukian, which she sings in their various vocal styles, in powerful, intelligent, texture-rich electronic and processed-guitar settings by Roman Lebedev and Uri Balashov.
     Edgy, wild and meaty, it’s folk-rock, but using the electronic and sound-manipulation possibilities that British folk-rock has largely ignored but are very much at the heart of the musics, largely non-folk rooted but diverse, from the Russian Federation and neighbours (many of which can be heard on the very useful US-based site www.farfrommoscow.com). Live these things can be rather deadeningly laptop-scrutinising – we’ll see, if they tour in this direction, whether that applies to the current Volga - but in the pure audio of a CD the possible sound-palette can be liberating and pictorial.

www.asphalt-tango.de


© 2014 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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