Robin Denselow 

SANS: Live review – ‘Subtle and at times unsettling’

Cherrypicking one of Andrew Cronshaw's group's live performances, this shows off their expertise in intense folk fusion, writes Robin Denselow
  
  


Three years ago, the British composer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Cronshaw released a haunting, atmospheric album The Unbroken Surface of Snow, which became a cult success in Europe. Now, he and the three other musicians involved in that project have become a band, SANS, which expands his experiment in fusing different folk influences in a quietly intense style that has the spontaneity of jazz. Each SANS performance is different, which is why this album was recorded live. Cronshaw plays a variety of zithers, along with the enormous fujara flute, and he's joined by Ian Blake on bass clarinet and saxophone and Tigran Aleksanyan, a master of the haunting Armenian reed pipe, the duduk, while vocals are provided by Finnish star Sanna Kurki-Suonio. The result is a subtle, at times gently unsettling album in which ancient laments from around the Baltic are fused with themes from England, Scotland and Armenia. Exquisite.

 

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