Genre: Neo-folk
01 Towers
02 He Walks Along The Seashore
03 The Touch Me Not City
04 Who Said
05 Mad Theater
06 Strange Tomorrow
07 Lamplighter
08 Legend
09 Blind Man
10 Babylon Is Doomed
11 We Kept Watch Over Time
12 Son
13 No Fear
14 Star Path
15 At The End Of Days
Ahnstern, the folk-oriented subdivision of the Austrian industrial label Steinklang Industries, is an imprint which inspires considerable brand loyalty in me. Their previous releases have included many acts which are central to my musical interests, such as Waldteufel, Sangre Cavallum, Sturmpercht, Svarrogh, Werkraum, In Gowan Ring and of course the mighty Allerseelen. Only one or two Ahnstern releases have failed to hit the mark with me, and so when a band previously unfamiliar to me appears on the label, I sit up and pay attention. The last time this happened was with the Lichtbuch album by Jahrtal, which turned out to be excellent, and happily, Zlye Kukly’s Strange Tomorrow also proves to be a very worthwhile addition to the Ahnstern roster.
Zlye Kukly is a group of Russian emigrés based in Jerusalem and formed by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Fred Adra, and Strange Tomorrow is their debut album, following a number of self-released CD-Rs. 15 tracks occupy a solid 73 minutes of playing time. The music of Zlye Kukly is grounded in acoustic folk, with guitar, flute, mandolin and violin all playing prominent roles, alongside Fred Adra’s vocals, but there is also a certain neo-classical quality evident in songs like ‘He Walks Along The Seashore’, which is based on a soulful piano line with backing from orchestral strings and the mellifluous flute of Alexander Waits. Natasha Belenkaya-Greenberg provides operatic soprano vocals on several tracks. Although the song titles are in English, all lyrics are sung in Russian. The booklet contains an English translation of the title track, but other than that, the non-Russian speaking listener has to rely on the emotional qualities conveyed in the singing rather than trying to decipher meanings. Fortunately, it’s not necessary to be able to understand the words to appreciate the emotional content they carry – these are songs of love and grief, longing and melancholy, celebration and loss, with plenty of that distinctively bittersweet, tragicomic quality found in a lot of eastern European folk music in general and Jewish traditional music in particular. There’s a discernible klezmer influence in the music of Zlye Kukly, and it’s surprising that there’s no clarinet on the album. It’s easy to envisage Zlye Kukly’s songs as a soundtrack to the flying goats and dancing rabbis of Marc Chagall’s surreal, joyful paintings of stetl culture, and somehow it’s not surprising to learn that Fred Adra is also a children’s author. Zlye Kukly’s music isn’t childish, but it does possess a childlike joie de vivre, even in its darker moments. Fred Adra himself describes his music as “soundtracks to children horror movies with pirate romantics.”
To some extent, Zlye Kukly fit in well with Russian language neo-folk groups like Ritual Front and Majdanek Waltz, or the Hungarian outfit Cawatana. However, this is far from straightforward folk – Zlye Kukly also draw upon the work of late 60s and early 70s psychedelic pop groups like Aphrodite’s Child, or even Serge Gainsbourg (another Russian Jewish emigré, of course) – check out the camp, sprightly spy-pop verses, histrionic tubular bell choruses, and wobbly theremin of ‘Lamplighter’, or the spooky, whispery chick-a-boom blues and rock drums of ‘The Touch Me Not City’. The intimate and embracing production of Strange Tomorrow brings the songs vividly to life and allows different instruments plenty of breathing space, and keyboards and effects are never allowed to predominate over the acoustic instrumentation. All in all, this album is lively, varied, life-enhancing and an uncomplicated pleasure to listen to. Mention should also be made of the cover and booklet art by Bulgarian designer Katia, whose evocative photomontages provide an excellent visual complement to Zlye Kukly’s music.
