Weaving Gold in Broken Places
Medusa Quartet
Independent (medusaquartet.bandcamp.com/album/weaving-gold-in-broken-places-2)
Toronto-based Medusa Quartet – Saskia Tomkins, Marta Solek, Lea Kirstein and Geo Hathaway – create unique global, chamber, and folk music on violin, viola and cello, and such rarely-heard bowed traditional string instruments like the Polish suka, Płock fidel, and Swedish nyckelharpa. Their inspiration to musically blend international, traditional folk and original music in their first full-length album is drawn from Japanese practice of Kintsugi, which mends broken pottery with gold.
Each composition on this ten-track release is a combination of such styles as chamber, pop, classical and world music. The title track, for violin, nyckelharpa, viola and cello, is composed by Kirstein and arranged by Medusa. It starts slow, with a low pitched, somewhat “sad” melody. This develops into different melodic sections with tight group playing, syncopated rhythms, slightly higher pitched sections, then back to the low theme and a rewarding brief ritardando closing of this folk/classical string quartet.
Kujawiak/Oberek are contrasting Polish dances arranged by Medusa for nyckelharpa, violin, płock fiddle, suka, and cello, the first traditional and the second composed by Sołek. Kujawiak starts slowly, in the lower registers. Love the lower grounding backdrop notes under the expressive melody. Fast Oberek enters with repeated melody lines and toe-tapping rhythms to closing.
Vulgar Bulgar, composed by Tomkins, features great syncopated melodies, and the pairing of loud rock-like and Bulgarian rhythms. Medusa musicians perform here on nyckelharpa, violin, lyra, and cello and are joined by guest hand percussionist Persian Naghmeh Farahmand.
A “must-listen-to” recording!
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