Pond | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

Following their critically acclaimed collaborative album with Tinariwen in 2016, Sainkho Namtchylak and Grammy Award-winning producer Ian Brennan return with a set of improvised songs recorded on the abandoned islands of Venice where Brennan has resided for the past 10 years. Sainkho speaks four languages (Tuvan, Russian, English, and German), but chose for this project to sing phonetically in the "language of nature". The album was recorded outdoors, 100% live, without overdubs, and with water as the main accompanying instrument.

"People don't realize how big the Venetian lagoon is. It is full of abandoned islands. Its history stretches over 1500 years and tells the story of the inhabitants' struggle for survival. That fight continues today, where, in the face of mass tourism, most residents have been displaced and the population has dwindled to the point that the centre of Venice has been largely deserted," says Ian Brennan. In contrast to an era where image takes precedence over sound, the aim of this project was to create an "audio film" indelibly imbued by time and place. One of the tracks was recorded on the most haunted island in Venice, a place many consider to be the most haunted place on the planet.

It is estimated that 160,000 people died there from the plague and it is rumoured that over 50% of the soil is made up of human ashes. A psychiatrist who was conducting brain surgery experiments on patients eventually committed suicide by throwing himself off the tower of the asylum. Sainkho's multi-octave voice can be heard bouncing off the walls of this former asylum, creating an otherworldly reverberation. During another song, a search and rescue mission is underway, pulling swimmers from the ocean. The helicopter flew overhead while Namtchylak and Brennan recorded on the roof of the fortress from which the Venetians sunk one of Napoleon's ships after his 18th century invasion.

Sainkho Namtchylak is one of the few female throat singers from Tuva. She began studying both the traditional Tuvan repertoire and overtone singing, a practice until then reserved only to men. Battling against misogyny at the beginning of her career, she has gone on to release over forty albums. In 2000 she released Stepmother City with Ponderosa Music & Arts which reflected on her ambivalent sentiments towards her move to Western Europe and her need to develop her link to Eastern spirituality. The album was followed by Time Out in 2001 and Who Stole the Sky? in 2003. Her music is an intertwined mix of tradition and innovation which draws on the Siberian and Mongolian music tradition to reach modern sounds, all tied together by her pure and enchanting voice.