Robert & Shanyio – Palimpsest CD

This material is probably the latest release by Shanyio, which came out a couple of months ago. Following his previous material Of The Waters / A Apelor, which I covered on these pages before, Palimpsest represents another dosage of acoustic ambient/drone by this Romanian avant-garde artist. However, this time he’s teamed up with Robert Nedelcu, another multi-instrumentalist who practices various instruments, approaches, and technics. With two tremendous artists on one bill, you can only expect a marvelous album that carries loads of listening pleasures, which Palimpsest certainly is. This particular material includes fifteen thoroughly planned compositions that lean more towards the melodic than the entirely experimental side. Palimpsest unquestionably falls under the experimental branch, mainly because of the dominant presence of both ambient and drone sounds. Nevertheless, these articulations are encapsulating pleasant melodies, harmonies, and other sonic delicacies rarely heard on experimental recordings.

Palimpsest also reveals heavy dosages of ethno and world music, but it seems like both Robert and Shanyio mainly focused on medieval/ethno music of the Balkans. The ethno music of the Balkan peninsula goes perfectly with the organic ambiance and drone aesthetics. You’ll notice how each melody, harmony, accentuation, and articulation seem like a reasonable and logical continuation of every composition. The amount of incorporated instruments is nearly mindblowing as well. Robert Nedelcu performs on instruments such as acoustic/electric guitar, bass, slide, dulcimer, panpipe, caval, blockflute, ney, harmonica, kemence, percussion, Jewish harp, and keyboards. Shanyio decided to perform on dulcimer, kantele, shakuhachi, percussion, which is quite a small amount considering the portion of instruments on his previous albums. Both artists are avoiding regular rhythmic sequences, but you won’t notice the lack of drum beats because there is a decent amount of other percussions included during the entire album. Palimpsest will be more than suitable to the admirers of profoundly detailed world music/ethno sound with a touch of pleasant ambient/drone aesthetics. This particular collaboration album comes on cassette and compact disc. Both of them are available on Shanyio’s Bandcamp page.