Arrangements vary from traditional-village to contemporary rock-tinged, from traditional instruments to mainstream Western. The songs are often modal minor and are apparently often based on Dainas two-stanza form, marking birth, marriage or death and/or designed to be sung on cyclic yearly calendar milestones such as Christmas, Easter, Summer Solstice, etc. There are more than 300,000 Dainas-associated melodies that have been identified and some 1.2 million texts according to the liners of this album. That is quite a cache!
The vocalists and instrumentalists are first-rate and the music vibrant and winning, memorable and down-to-earth. If I am a novice and have little-to-no experience with the music of this region I can say that the program on this album is a winning one to my ears.
Happily recommended.
