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Kitka
The Rusalka Cycle: Songs between the Worlds
(Diaphonica)
First Appeared in The Music Box, January 2008, Volume 15, #1
Written by Douglas Heselgrave
Mon January 21, 2008, 09:00 AM CST
At times, it is as beautiful as a single breath of wind that gently skitters
across the surface of the water at dawn. At other moments it is as unsettling as
the crackling whoosh of a wildfire as it spreads through a field of dry timber.
Kitka’s The Rusalka Cycle: Songs between the Worlds wrestles with the
spirits of women who prematurely have died in ways that were, perhaps, unjust.
Like the sirens from Greek mythology, the call of the Rusalki is seductive and
unnerving, and the beauty of their songs is designed to lure unsuspecting
listeners to their deaths. With such a warning contained in its liner notes, it
is best not to operate heavy machinery while listening to The Rusalka Cycle.
Kitka — which means ‘bouquet’ in Bulgarian and Macedonian — began in 1979 as
a collective of like-minded women from the San Francisco area who shared an
interest in exploring the dissonant, asymmetric rhythms of Eastern European
vocal music. In the nearly 30 years since its inception, Kitka has evolved from
an amateur gathering into a professional singing and theatrical group that has
recorded many albums and toured internationally. Since 1997, Kitka has been
co-directed by Shira Cion, Juliana Graffagna, and Janet Kutulas, and it
currently is considered to be one of America’s most technically adept vocal
acts.
Not satisfied simply to rest on their laurels, however, the members of Kitka
approached The Rusalka Cycle with the desire to create a record that
challenged their abilities. "We wanted to make a piece that really stretched us
as performers," explained Cion. "[We wanted to make] something theatrical and
risk-taking, something that took our audiences on a total sensory and emotional
journey." While searching for material, Kitka kept encountering tales of the
Rusalki in the Slavic folklore that stretches from the Balkans to Siberia. The
songs on The Rusalka Cycle are inspired by week-long rituals that are
designed to appease these spirits whose mischief is believed to cause an array
of tragedies, from crop failure to birth defects.
"We realized that these entities were more than just characters in fairy
tales," Cion continued. "[They were] very real forces in the collective
consciousness of many rural Slavic villages. There were such rich folklore and
imagery surrounding the Rusalki, and there were powerful songs that refused to
leave our minds’ ears."
The members of Kitka elicited the aid of Mariana Sadovska, a renowned
Ukrainian singer and musicologist, for help with finding and arranging material
about the Rusalki. Sadovska had spent 15 years traveling from village to village
throughout the Balkans collecting ancient songs, and she agreed to assist in
creating The Rusalka Cycle as long as the members of Kitka committed
themselves to making a pilgrimage to the Ukraine during Rusalka Week. Sadovska
felt that it was important for the group’s members to experience the rituals
firsthand. She didn’t want them to record the tunes in the cultural isolation of
an American studio without hearing them be performed by women who truly believed
in their power.
For Kitka, the journey to the Ukraine was transformative, to say the least.
Arriving in time for Rusalka Week, the group joined the processions that wound
their way through the small villages and took them to ancient cemeteries where
tunes that were designed to appease the troubled spirits of the Rusalki were
sung. After hearing women use the traditional Rusalki song structure to exorcize
their own personal laments, the members of Kitka began to comprehend the
important psychological function that this music served.
"As the sun rose, we joined our hosts, [who were] covered in green leaves, in
a slow procession," remembered Cion. "Once we reached the graves, the interwoven
sound of dozens of individual laments rang through the early morning air. Some
were freshly grief-stricken. Some were obligatory. Some verged on being
humorous."
As Kitka traveled through the Ukraine, its members collected songs and
deepened their understanding of Rusalki tradition. Repeatedly, the group
encountered survivors of Chernobyl, and the elderly women that they met happened
to be some of the few remaining people who continued to carry the oral tradition
of the Rusalki with them. As Kitka’s journey unfolded, the urgency and the
significance of its work began to resonate strongly. In their minds, the unseen
spectre of radiation was inseparable from the portentous phantasm of the
Rusalkis that village women’s songs conjured.
"The deeper we went into the material, the more intensely we trained," said
Cion. "More bizarre, scary, and miraculous things started to happen. Madness,
near blindness, hallucinatory fevers, heart attacks, broken bones, pregnancies,
psychic visions, and more all touched the project in various ways. We really
felt the Rusalki were there, messing with us."
As universal and fascinating as the story behind the creation of the album
is, the music on The Rusalka Cycle will remain an acquired taste for most
listeners. The depth and range of the singers’ skills are indisputable, and the
breadth of moods and emotions covered by the ensemble is awe-inspiring. It is,
however, nearly impossible to find a counterpoint or comparison in Western
tradition for the sounds that Kitka has conceived. Rules of harmony and melody,
which guide North American, Western European, and, for that matter, African
music, are absent. As such, The Rusalka Cycle can be difficult to
approach. Nevertheless, some of Icelandic chanteuse Bjork’s more "outside" and
atonal work is perhaps closest in spirit to at least a few of the tracks
featured on the disc.
Despite these cautionary notes — and keeping in mind that Kitka’s music won’t
appeal to everyone — there is something immensely compelling about The
Rusalka Cycle when its contents are heard in context as part of a suite.
Cold and chilling, its music is the sound of souls trapped in winter. With
voices at the high end of the spectrum flickering like embers of coal,
illuminating the vague skeletons of harmony that allow its tunes to move
forward, the album illustrates a formidable journey of the spirit. With The
Rusalka Cycle, Kitka has produced a deep and challenging effort that will
keep pushing, prodding, and insinuating itself deeper into the listener’s
consciousness, and through repeated exposure, the dark heart of this truly
amazing work of art inevitably will be revealed. 
The Rusalka Cycle: Songs between the Worlds is available from
Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2008 The Music Box
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