Living Water
Review by Joachim Ceulemans «LUKEBOX»
Review by Henry Lauer «Heathen Harvest»
Leo Records 2009, CD LR 533
This is a very unusual record. Most of Evelyn Petrova’s previous work was either in the solo (her magnificent Year’s Cycle) or duo (with trumpeter Slava Gyvoronsky or violinist Alexander Balanescu) format. Living Water is also a duo record, except we never get to hear Evelyn’s new partner – dancer and performance artist Tanya Khabarova, for the CD is based on their performance entitled Taming of a Butterfly.
Which is just as well because Living Water is very much a continuation of the same trend Evelyn has started in her opus Year’s Cycle – raw, visceral, gutsy and at the same time subtle and complex folk-rooted music. The folk it is based on is not the light heavenly realm of fairy tales: it’s dark, somber, sometimes even frightening world populated with ancient pre-Christian rituals and mythology.
It’s complex and daring effort of an artist who is not afraid to bare her soul with everything that’s within every one of us: dreams and nightmares, hopes and fear, heaven and hell, beauty and despair.
Alexander Kan, BBC, London
“Perhaps her deep grasp of folk music is what enables her to set the experimental aspects of her music to such good use – there is a sense of context and tradition which, though dramatically metamorphosed, nevertheless provides a strong tap root for exotic branches to bloom…”
Music by Evelyn Petrova
Recorded live 2008 at the Interier Theater, St.Petersburg
Sound- Nikolai Iakimov
Mastering- Nikita Ivanov-Noman
Tracks:
1. Mysterious forest 6’50
2. Lullybye 4’42
3. Play 4’09
4. Lass 3’48
5. Song 2’41
6. Party 3’01
7. Angel 1’15
8. Conversation with mother 5’07
9. Contest 4’49
10. Lament 1’45
11. Dream 2’08
12. Bride 3’37
13. Market scrap 2’23
14. Wedding train 2’54
Total time: 49’16
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