BANDCAMP DAILY: The Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2019
BANDCAMP DAILY: The Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2019
BY PETER MARGASAK
“Haitian-American vocalist, flutist, and composer Nathalie Joachim—a member of the flute duo Flutronix and the popular Chicago chamber ensemble eighth blackbird—delivers a highly personal lyrical work with this set of pieces gathered from the traditional music of her ancestral homeland, Haiti. She launched the project not long after the passing of her maternal grandmother in 2015—a powerful link for her to the music and culture of that island, through the stories and songs shared in the rural farming village of Dantan. Joachim conducted research, recording interviews with storied vocalists Emerante de Pradines and Carole Demesmin, as well as Milena Sandler, daughter of the great Toto Bissainthe, about Haitian musical tradition and feminist freedom in Haiti. Their words are spread throughout the album. She wrote new arrangements for most of the traditional songs, while she composed new music for ‘Suite pou Dantan,’ using the original lyrics of older songs and hymns.
She’s empathically supported by the lustrous strings of Spektral Quartet—sometimes solemn, sometimes playful—and several pieces meticulously deploy electronic beats and her own serene flute lines. For ‘Suite pou Dantan’ she built the pieces around a children’s church choir she recorded in Dantan, underlining how Haitians adapted Catholic liturgy to tribal religious beliefs from West Africa. Her singing has a measured, crystalline soulfulness to it, and throughout this spectacular record she effortlessly blends the past and present, tradition and the contemporary.”