Frankly weird, a mash-up, but definitely haunting
I had never heard of Jocelyn Pook, till a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video of a piece of 
`sacred style’ Western choral singing composed by her, very much in Early Music polyphony mode (which I love)
Alas, this was a while ago and I can no longer find that particular clip
However I also love the strange atonal, dissonant singing and ululations of Arabic music. And it turns out that Ms Pook, best known for film and TV sound tracks, (Eyes Wide Shut, by all accounts propelled her to a wider audience) works with a fusion of Western classical, and strands of world music which clearly pull in threads from the Balkans, the Middle East, India, and she also incorporates more modern, electronic techniques – reverb, sampled sounds. And then there is a rich and sumptuous vein of high romantic and lyrical use of Western classical strings, lush and emotional.
And, on this particular album some up-beat, tabla driven rhythmic numbers, which invite the listener to groove, move and sway
This shouldn’t really work, somehow it does! Personally I found the more dance upbeat numbers were not quite as alluring as the other tracks, missing the stranger, more unusual quality of the other, intensely emotional tracks.
The YouTube embed is of Requiem aeternam, a track from another Pook album Flood
Untold Things Amazon UK
Untold Things Amazon USA
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