CD Review | Invented Folksongs, Anna Pidgorna, Ludovico Ensemble

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Red Shift Records
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Pidgorna: Invented Folksongs

Anna Pidgorna, composer & vocals; Ludovico Ensemble

Red Shift Records

In 2012-13 Ukrainian/Canadian composer and vocalist Anna Pidgorna visited Ukraine to record traditional Ukrainian folk music. She used this material as a jumping-off point for her own composition Invented Folksongs. It’s a set of four longish (each 10 minutes or so) songs and two shorter instrumental pieces. These are in no way an “arrangement” of traditional pieces à la Benjamin Britten. The texts were written by Pidgorna herself and the compositions blend some folk elements with music that uses rhythms and tonalities that don’t sound at all “folky” in either the traditional or the singer-songwriter sense of “folk.”

The texts flirt with traditional folk-song themes, but in a subversive kind of way. “What Else Can I Give Him” therefore becomes a take on the how-do-I-show-I-love-him theme; “Teach Your Daughters” deals graphically with rape and murder; and “Drown in the Depth” tackles same-sex love. The final song—“Walk Under the Moon”—is in more traditional romantic love territory and has maybe the folkiest music, even with some echoes of dance rhythms.

The instrumental music also plays around with folk idioms with the standard western instruments of the Boston-based Ludovico Ensemble (violin, cello, bass, cimbalom and percussion) chosen to echo the timbres of traditional Ukrainian instruments. There’s a piano, too, but it’s prepared to roughen up the sound. Generally, the music is quite melodic, but not in the way that folk songs usually flow. It changes up tempo, mood and texture quite frequently so there’s never a comfortable place to settle as one might expect from a folk tune.

The vocal style (it’s the composer singing) is varied, too. There’s folk song-like strophic singing and keening but there’s also the use of head voice and some techniques that one is more likely to hear in contemporary composed music than in either folk or more conventional classical opera or art song. And unless my ears deceive me, Pidgorna is multi-tracking on a couple of numbers.

The recording, too, is not at all like listening to a bunch of folk musicians, whether in a pub or a concert hall. The instruments were recorded in Boston and the vocals in Nashville, then remixed in some interesting ways. There’s a very definite sound stage, but instruments and especially the vocals are spatially relocated. At times Pidgorna seems to be doing a call and response with herself on the opposite side of the stage! It’s all very crisp and clear.

An unusual amount of thought has gone into the accompanying booklet, too. It has the usual composer’s notes, bios and the Ukrainian texts and English translations, but these have been transformed by illustrator Olha Kriuchkovska and graphic designer Roksolana Uhryniuk into something far more artistic than the average CD insert!

This is a very interesting and genre-bending release that will sit easier with a contemporary music listener than anyone used to more usual definitions of folk music. It’s being released as a physical CD, CD quality lossless digital, MP3 and on the usual streaming platforms.