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Written in fRoots issue 258, 2004

LADO
Christmas Songs And Carols Of Dalmatia
Aquarius CD 18-03 (2003)

LADO
Lado Electro
Aquarius CD 27-03 (2003)

Lado, the Croatian national folklore ensemble, was formed way back in 1949. Its members both sing and dance, and it also includes a tamburitza orchestra and other instrumentalists. Yes, it puts on colourful folkloric spectacles, but its recordings are often musically impressive. Seventeen of its albums are currently available on CD, including these latest two.

      The first has the male and female chorales, unaccompanied, singing arrangements by Joško Čaleta of Christmas carols and songs learned from field recordings made in various parts of Dalmatia: Trogir, the islands of Brač, Hvar and Murter, and the islands of the Zadar region. It’s definitely a tamed, organised sound compared to what the field recordings must sound like, but it isn’t soppy; the men are full-throated and the women’s voices have Balkan edginess.

      The other CD, Lado Electro, seems to be an aspect of the ensemble’s survival into this post-communist era, where things have to pay their way. I suppose it’s good to see such a long-established and previously very much establishment ensemble having the awareness to try new paths, but results here aren’t startling. Samples of their earlier recordings have been laid across unimaginative and irrelevant four-four machine percussion sequences and simplistic ambient echoing. According to the press release it seems to have gone down well among Croatian music critics, but perhaps they don’t get out much among other electronic and techno music.

      www.lado.hr


© 2004 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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