Tags
Cuncordu e Tenore de Orosei, Ernst Reijseger, Mola Sylla, Music review, Requiem for a Dying Planet, Soundtrack, Werner Herzog, World music review
Shivery, aching music for the end of time
This is an utterly splendid, stunningly beautiful, piece of music, which, even without the Werner Herzog films it is soundtrack for, suggests space opening up, relics of all we have loved and lost, and humanity itself, vanished on the wind. All we were, all we created, gone. The first track, a richly pure unknown vocalist floats a classical devotional `Thanks Be to God’ Danke Sei Gott’ in a way which seems to lift into the stratosphere, dissolving into Reijseger’s cello and disembodied isolated notes. This then settles into
the overall musical flavour, which is a rich weaving of the cello, accompanying the ancient, earthy, visceral sounds of the vocalists – Senegalese singer and musician, Mola Sylla, singing in Wolof, with a voice of rich ululations and resonance (he also plays kalimba, xalam, percussions), weaving with some of the amazing drones and tapestry of throat music sounds of Sardinian polyphonic music, both sacred and secular, sung by Cuncordu e Tenore de Orosei, marrying two traditional singing modes.
The powerful combinations of voices, cello, other instrumentation, and natural sounds which come at the ends of songs – water, wind, thunder, suggest the sadness of a planet now without life.
This is music for and by those who value and hold sacred Gaia, and all that creeps, and bounds upon her, swims within her waters, or flies in her skies It also speaks to those who treasure and value our several histories, as creatures who are nurtured by earth, even as we destroy her
Requiem for a Dying Planet Amazon UK
Requiem for a Dying Planet Amazon USA
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