The forest made of rain and frogs
A frog gets over his fear of water
The frog gone away with the wind
Women of rain forest
One more song about frog
The woman of the forest and clouds like sheep
The forest's song for big red frog
The old frog's dream
The travel of water frog to neighbour's forest through the rains
Wet frog getting cold

Being aware of, but having not heard their prior album on Stateart, this is my first introduction to this experimental duo from Israel.

Without so much as a reference point as to prior output, on this album Grundik+Slava approach experimental electronica with an extremely varied sound palate. Rather then interlinking individual pieces as part of a collective whole, they instead opt to explore sounds, textures & styles on each track as an individual composition. To this extent the artists themselves acknowledged that in approaching these recordings: “there were no compositional or conceptual limits”. Yet for this reason alone I found this a somewhat jarring CD, given that one track might evoke a stunning atmosphere, but would be scuppered on subsequent pieces.

Noting that fragments of the album were sourced from improvised vocal sessions, I think that this is where certain tracks simply lose me, given obviously improvised music have never entirely grasped me in a positive way. But to highlight those tracks which do positively grab my attention, these arrive as sweeping, melodious drone collages, and subtle electro-acoustic cut ups.

So, if you approach this album with caution and are willing to either make use the skip button, or program out those tracks that don’t work so well, there are some gems to be found here.

RJS