Syphon  cover
Released

This is a slapper. Polish composer Rusin is working here with “speculative medieval and renaissance music,” which simply means that it conjures the genre from scratch rather than using existing bits of plainchant or the like. Sopranos Eden Girma and Emmy Broughton sing in English, presenting what feel like psychological hymns, but then the vista shifts entirely away from vocals and we get unidentifiable interludes with bagpipes and flutes and clucking little 3D-printed bespoke instruments. This is an album that makes its own home and then tours itself, like a trip through from the ground floor to the basement of the church and back, saints and bats both invited.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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