Voicehandler — Song Cycle

Voicehandler's "Song Cycle" is an immediate entrancing and intense album of Gamelan-esque percussion and chant-like singing, repetitions of small, simplistic sequences of notes which gradually build to higher and more intense positions on the scale.  There is a sense of ritualistic, powerfully sharp mental focus throughout the album.  Quiet as it sometimes is, a formidable tension permeates the entirety.  It's not an album you can sleep to, or one that will bore you.  Voicehandler approach this performance with warrior ferocity.

When singer Danishta Rivero reaches the frighteningly dissonant climactic pitch of opener "Soñando", I'm reminded of the resounding, larger than life voice of Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard, the way she soared unapologetic above a forboding chord, invoking dream-like images of unfathomable vastness and their accompanying sensations of vertigo.  Danishta's style is a good deal more aggressive and animalistic than Gerrard ever got; she growls, gasps, spits and screams all throughout this album, pushing herself into ever more uninhibited realms of vocalization.  The result is a good combination of an eerily controlled operatic vibrato (such as would be required to execute atonal classical pieces like Schoenberg's "Pierro Lunaire") and total abandonment of ego and restraint, as practiced in modern day by freeform vocalists like Yamatsuka Eye or Mike Patton.

According to the liner notes, the lyrics for each of the 5 pieces are derived from different works of literature, written in Spanish, in the case of tracks 1 and 4.  Though it seems some are in English, the style of the music does not bring the lyrical content to the fore, as each word is stretched for several seconds to the point that sentences are not discernable.  This is not a problem; the music is essentially completely effective without any knowledge of the words.
The backdrop of the music is also much sparser than the highly chordal music of Dead Can Dance.  Most tracks here are something of a call and response between gong/drum and singer.  In true ritualistic form, the entire reverberant contrail of the gong is often heard before it is hit again.  Remarkably, the emotional immediacy of the vocals and their close interplay with the percussion result in the album hardly feeling slow or lacking in content at any point.

Breathing inward so sharply that it creates a whistling banshee shriek, Danishta begins to babble erratically, acting as medium for some malevolent entity.  "Mi Falible Mano" is dominated by irregular volleys of rattles and taps rather than gongs, like coins clattering across a metal surface.  It is impossible for me to identify what instruments might have created many of the sounds, deepening the evocative quality of the sound.  This track in particular reaches a screechingly abrasive, cacophanous peak that could easily be called 'harsh noise' if a little distortion was added, but it's a joyous racket, Danishta's throaty wails putting a smile on my face every time.

I loved this album.  It contributes the meditative, focused presence of ritual ambient music, while somehow equally representing the fiercely irreverent, animalistic persona of free improvisation.  It is avant garde with intent and passion.  It is meditation music for restless spirits.