RIGA - Janis Zilde first came to my attention as a member of Satellites LV, the group behind the excellent "A Kind of Glue" album. He's now gone on to make his first solo release, the evocatively tiled "Stavi" (which means floors, silhouettes or an imperative to stay put, among other things).
"Stavi" is an ambitious work and, it has to be said, by far the best thing I've heard from a Latvian musician for quite some time. It's not especially easy listening. On first hearing it I was inclined to dismiss it as pretentious musical posturing. But something made me want to persevere with it, and by the fifth listen, I felt like I'd made a welcome new friend, or if that's slightly overstating it, at least a welcome acquaintance.
The first track is something of an epic at around 15 minutes. It's a slow, ponderous song that starts off with some timid electronic tinkering before a delightfully simple looped guitar riff takes over. The climax, with a mezzo-soprano singing a short, startlingly beautiful chorus in Latvian, is beautifully realized.
The second track is a nicely worked combination of jazz and rock, a little reminiscent of Radiohead's "The National Anthem" in its sudden rasping outbursts, but ultimately more subtle.
Tracks three and four are the most inconsequential - pleasant sounding, but not much more, a sort of self-knowing elevator music.
The fifth track is the most avant-garde track on the album. Actually, like so much avant-garde music, it doesn't really have very much to say beyond the fact that it wants to say something.
The sixth track is perhaps the best of all, bringing together all the disparate elements of "Stavi" in hypnotic fashion. The song - or "Stavi 6," as it's called - subtly intermingles a two-chord jangly guitar riff with a wonderfully seductive piece of jazz. It's sparsely arranged but so atmospheric that it oozes refined emotion.
All in all, "Stavi" is a great step forward for Zilde, who describes it as "a conceptual album about growing older, physically, emotionally and morally." He's produced a work that's contemplative, exploratory but also accessible. Most impressive of all, "Stavi" was a labor of love for Zilde, who paid for the whole project himself and is unlikely to recoup the costs.
"Stavi" certainly won't appeal to everyone. But this innovative and heartfelt work deserves to be heard, if only because it puts most other music in Latvia to shame. One can't help wondering what Zilde might achieve if he had a decent producer behind him. It will be very interesting to see where he goes from here.
"Stavi" by Janis Zilde
Available from Upe Records
and all good record stores.
