Hallock Hill

The Magic Carpathians

Last Sunday on the always magical Airborne Event, Dan Bodah played a 19’09” complete head exploder by The Magic Carpathians from Poland. This was new and fresh to me, and I soon found myself on their MySpace, where they provided:

“The Magic Carpathians Project has been active since 1998, established by Anna Nacher and Marek Styczynski (who previously had been a leader Theatre of Sound ATMAN). Influenced by musical traditions of Eastern and Central Europe (most notably the multicultural region of Carpathians mountains, spanning through Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia), free jazz, the philosophy of sound of classical Indian music and contemporary classic the duo creates compositions based on improvisation using plethora of traditional instruments from Asia, Europa and Australia. Prepared electric guitar, home-made analog electronics, field recordings made during their numerous travels around the world and bastardised radio waves add up to the distinct atmosphere of their music. Anna Nacher is also praised for her vocal technique - she has mastered various types of traditional styles of singing known as throat singing, developped through Central Asia and Eastern Europe. She regularly run voice trainings through a series of workshops (Poland, Greece, Germany, Slovenia).

Released 10 albums, present on many compilations released in the UK, Sweden, the U.S, Italy, toured the United States in 2001 and 2006 (from Knitting Factory, NYC through SXSW, Austin to Bottom of the Hill, SF). They also regularly play and run workshops in Europe (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Slovenia Central Europe). The recent cooperations include the split CD with the American group Cerberus Shoal released on Northeast Indie.”

This is gorgeous music, made slowly and carefully. With regards to their latest release, Acousmatic Psychogeograpy, they wrote “We won’t be probably storming every chain store and you won’t find us at Empik, WalMart or Amazon. We’re real people and you can find us, pay with PayPal account, get some warm words from us and that’s all. Back to the core.”

I’m more than willing to head back to the core with them.

Fat MoonbyMagic Carpathians

Here they are on MySpace, YouTube and their own website (Polish needed).