Some of the current ECM stable of artists have combined folk, early music elements and ambient ECM jazz in startling ways. Sinikka Langeland is one such as you can hear in her new album
The Magical Forest (ECM 2448). "Magical," "enchanted" are words that some to mind listening. Sinikka has a lovely voice and plays the kantele, a kind of folk harp, and she is joined for this album by the Trio Mediaeval, three female voices of otherworldly grace and charm. Also on hand is her Starflowers quintet that includes Arve Henriksen on trumpet, Trygve Seim on tenor and soprano saxes, Anders Jormin on double bass and Markku Ounaskari on percussion, a very capable outfit that expands the sound with a folk-jazz spaciousness.
The lyrics and hence the theme of this album is centered around the legend of the World Tree, axis mundi.
It is an album that places you on a folk-jazz terrain that is exceedingly beautiful, like no other exactly, lyrical and sonically uncanny.
If you are looking for something new and lyrical and are not sure of what, this one may give you what you cannot quite name. It's like that. It is beyond our age yet belongs to it exceptionally well.
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