Label: ECM Records, 2023
Personnel - Stephan Micus: frame drum, dung chen, Burmese temple bells, Himalayan horse bells, ki un ki, bass zither, bowed dinding, kyeezee, shakuhachi, sarangi, nyckelharpa, kaukas, sapeh, voice, nokhan.
Thunder, the most recent release from multi-intrumentalist and world music practitioner Stephan Micus, is far from roaring despite paying tribute to several thunder gods around the world. It’s a rather sharply plotted musical excursion that keeps reimagining the limits of improvised world sounds. Micus, an eternal traveler with a long-legged career nearly exclusively made on ECM Records, plays 14 instruments here, and forges homogeneous stylistic paths in innovative ways over the course of nine tracks.
“A Song for Thor” unfolds firmly with reverberating frame drum sounds, low-pitched drones emitted by the bass zither, and - operating on a higher register - three Tibetan dung chen trumpets (Micus learned recently this four-meter long instrument at a Buddhist monastery in Katmandu and recorded it here for the very first time), and a ki un ki, a two-meter wind instrument used by the Udege people in Eastern Siberia. This musical state tiptoes into ritualistic territory, just like “A Song for Vajrapani”, whose mysticism shrouds the piece in an intriguing curtain of mystery. On the latter, the ki un ki is replaced by the nokhan, a transverse Japanese bamboo flute.
“A Song for Armazi”, with majestic percussive sweeps of bass zither and the bowed strings of the sarangis (India) and the nyckelharpa (Sweden), evokes the impressive stillness of a beautiful landscape. Taking the same instrumentation to a more melodic level, “A Song for Zeus”, flows with a gentle percussive drive, becoming one of the most immediate and compelling tracks on the album.
Both “A Song for Shango” and “A Song for Ishkur” incorporate voice layers (eight and three, respectively), kaukas (a pluriarc from South Africa) and sapeh (a lute from Borneo). They avoid commonplace with a contemplative spiritual insight.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - A Song for Thor ► 03 - A Song for Armazi ► 07 - A Song for Zeus