Recenzje

ATMAN featuring Anna Nacher "Tradition" (Drunken Fish)

When I first heard that Atman had featured a female vocalist on their 2nd U.S. release, I was a little worried, visions of softened Windham Hillbillies from Poland, flooded my mind. But, if anything, this is an even better album than their instrumental first release, Personal Forest (‘97 Drunken Fish). More organic flow, even more of a folkish psychedelic aura, they do an a capella wordless version of St. Jimi’s "Third Stone from the Sun", that’s like dawn rising over planet-wide oceans, speeding it’s lifegiving warmth and light to the sleeping dreaming world, via; zither, dulcimer, guitar, bass and much more. These folks play a wonderful assortment of instruments, from, darabouka, didjeridu, lamellophones, czurynga, shamanistic frame drum, Slovakian pastoral fujara, and a wide assortment of flutes, bells and rattles. All employed to serve a wickedly beautiful modern mix of earthly powerful folk rock as ritualistic psychedelic invocation. As for my sexist “fears” regarding Anna, she up’s the edge factor considerably with her intense and masterful vocalizations that range from song-sweetness to banshee-mad gibber and swooping bird-of-prey shrieking, calling to mind singers as diverse as; Diamanda Galas, Mimi Goese, Johanna Went, Hannah Marcus, Yoko Ono, Björk, and Dagmar Krause. From the “safe” confines of the relatively songlike to pure sound, drone, mantra, improvisation, jazz, raga, and sustained exploratory atmospheric excursions, all oozing ancient European cavern-worlds of prehistorical psychic wisdom, beyond words or time. Atman are magicians, but these aren’t tricks; this magic is real, just listen for yourself.

George Parsons, DREAM Magazine