llama

Too good to ignore.

“Llama”is perhaps the most unusual to date. It features a young Israeli percussionist, Ravid Goldschmidt, performing on a Swiss variant of the steel pan (played with hands not mallets) called a hang (pronounced hong and meaning hand in Bernese), and Spanish improvisational vocalist Silvia Pérez Cruz. The result is a dreamy voyage that must be heard to be believed – imagine Björk in Trinidad on some sort of tranquilizers. Goldschmidt’s mellow one-man-steel-pan-band (the hang is a “flying saucer” shaped instrument 53 centimeters in diameter with a bass note on the underside and eight notes tuned modally on the top) provides both accompaniment for the vocals and extended instrumental interludes. For more details on this unique instrument check out (www.oddmusic.com/gallery/hang/). Trained as a jazz multi-instrumentalist, Silvia Pérez Cruz brings a wealth of creativity to this project.

David Olds
Editor, DISCOVERIES
2006-07-06