The pairing of bassist Yosef Gutman Levitt and guitarist Tal Yahalom is an intriguing one, both wishing to bring greater attention to those melodies of the Hasidim that might otherwise escape the attention of the average gentile listener.
This is their second album together and here, they turn their considerable skills to nigunim — traditional wordless Jewish melodies — that were transcribed and recorded by Eli Rivkin in the Russian village of Lubavitch and then taken on and recorded by Yosef and Tal in Jerusalem.
These melodies have clearly had some travelling to do, but it is their ability to conjure up exotic vistas and that sense of peripatetic momentum. There is a sense of pride along with the elegant simplicity of the arrangements, and a certain magic in the sound of Levitt’s five-string acoustic bass that shimmers over Tal’s acoustic guitar. There is also an implicit melancholy, that sense of constant wandering, the search for something which is ever out of reach. That sense of momentum at times is merged with the desire to be still and this dichotomy plays out throughout the album; you can imagine folk moving in groups through wide-open plains, places with which we are unfamiliar, the simple melodies their constant companions. The extraordinary ringing tones echo into the distance as the guitar strums crossways, connecting routes, sharing a little with what we may recognise as western classical or even the heartfelt solitude of someone like Andrés Segovia; but it is a coincidence and due to the choice of instruments, there is an ageless purity and the clarity of rushing water. But that sense of the exotic, tones and melodies fluttering beyond our recognition, going against our considered knowledge with that delicious five-string and their endlessly changing forms reconfiguring what we know of the acoustic duo.Some pieces are sparse, the dry dusty air playing around the resonant strings; while others are more involved, drawing in the listener, involving them unexpectedly. It is a journey through a foreign land, one of which we have heard much, but know little; and these carefully compiled vignettes seem to fill in the gaps, Yal and Yosef working as our guides, steering us through a slowly evolving panorama, sometimes fatigued, sometimes sprightly but always with that sense of discovery just ahead.
-Mr Olivetti-
