‘Boa-Lingua’ is the follow-up to ‘Cuspo’ (see Vital Weekly 1151). Siria is the work of Diana Combo and her main instrument is the voice, in combination with vinyl records, field recordings “and other sound sources”. The press release also mentions “Boa-LÃngua was made from recordings of practice sessions that were not originally intended to be used or worked as songs.
Boa-LÃngua means “good tongueâ€, used in opposition to “má-lÃnguaâ€, literally “bad tongueâ€, a Portuguese expression for “tittle-tattleâ€. Siria doesn’t use words per se, but more vocal exercises, which she then treats with studio technology, which I think in this case is to be understood as whatever happens in the laptop. The songs are, however, in some form originals from somewhere (“traditional songs and chants, a version of one Azerbaijani song, two originals (one in Turkish, one in Portuguese) and two original songs in which the voice does not take the form of words”), but whatever she does, it all became rather abstract and with some great result.
There is a fine interaction between her ‘natural’ voice, singing, humming, chanting and whatever else she does with these recordings. Sometimes I had the idea this was a sort of on the spot processing, but that might very well a wrong idea from me. There is very little conventional about all of this and yet it also sounds strangely familiar. There is a ritualistic aspect in the way the singing takes place but also in the addition of other sounds, such as the slow percussive thump in ‘For Ghédalia’. In the title piece, she sings and loops rather normally, stretching and sustaining via loops and such. It is between these ends that we find all of these pieces, a meeting of something traditional and something unconventional; something experimental and electronic if you will.
Despite all the newness of it all, this is also something ancient and mysterious, which is perhaps the oddest thing about. A delicate release! (FdW)
via Vital Weekly