Adela Mede — Ne L​é​pj a Vir​á​gra
Slovakian singer Adela Mede presents here her second album, Ne Lépj a Virágra, released by Warm Winters Ltd and Mappa as well as on her personal Bandcamp page.
I initially expected Mede to be something of a traditional European folk music-oriented vocalist, as the liner notes talk about her connection to her homeland and its history. While it's true that folk music supplies much of the melodic language the music is written in, this album is more of a modern ambient recording, based on electronic looping of voice and other acoustic instrumental recordings, with fragments of folk-ish melodies appearing in slow motion form amidst expanses of drone and melancholic chord progression.
Opener "Sing with Me" is a sort of digitally created round, with layered takes of Mede's voice smoothly intoning the titular phrase in staggered rhythms. It's soothing and has a lullaby-like energy, but perhaps lingers a bit too long at nearly eight minutes.
Jakub Smiček's accordion appears on the third track, and functions as a chordal drone accompaniment to Mede's voice. I hear what sounds like a clarinet on the final track, with a pleasing and rich tone. Largely, the album is without tempo, as there are no rhythmic instruments. The sense of rhythm that does emerge comes from the rhythm of electronic looping and the cadence of the slowly, carefully uttered phrases.
Throughout the album, Mede's tone is hushed, and understated, almost as if she is attempting not to wake someone sleeping in her house, or irritate her neighbours. A quavering vibrato is infused into each note, and the overall impression is delicate and fragile, but elegant and tuneful. There is a sort of tragic emotion to most of it as well, which paired with the general slowness, makes for good funeral music.
Although the music is melodically satisfying, the timbres inviting and luminous, for me there is a sense of dragging across time, as if, in the absence of meter, Mede waits just a moment too long to begin each successive phrase. Each chord seems to linger slightly longer than the last, and there is a feeling of slowing gradually, of sinking into immobility. Generally, I would not use such melancholic music for sleeping, so I'm not sure I'll be reaching for this recording too often.