This is the second full-length for Kariti, a Siberian singer-songwriter based in Trieste who recently switched to the Dutch label Lay Bare Recordings. Unlike her debut “Covered Mirror” which had a more acoustic direction, this new work introduces distorted guitars and synthesizers. Still, it leaves intact the magic and mystical suggestions put forth by the artist.
Kariti and Aleksander Blok
The album title “Dheghom” seems to refer to Mother Earth which is both a refuge and a creative ancestral force. The track begins with “As Within,” a poem by Aleksandr Blok recited in his mother tongue, in the background a keyboard note and the sound of a distant peal. Thus, “A Mare Called Night” gets off to a strong start, where a sound carpet given by a synthesizer and a cadenced drum beat create a ritualistic, neo-folk atmosphere. It is a song devoid of gravity, in which the singing, this time in English, is as if suspended in the air.
Kariti and Сон
Kariti is a priestess of a mysterious cult that suggests hidden worlds, and hells, without ever fully showing them to us. “Сон (Son)” is still a reference to Blok‘s poem, and the word ‘Сон’ is a play on the meanings of ‘dream’ and ”mother.” Singing over a delicate arpeggio is then erased by the entrance of a distorted guitar. In one of those sound solutions dear to Chelsea Wolfe.
The two American queens meet
On the mysterious “Vilomah,” Kariti duets with Dorthia Cottrell of Windhand. And we imagine the song of the Fates as they weave the lives of men: Cloto weaving the thread of existence, Làchesi deciding its fate and, behind a half-open door, Àtropo ready to sever life at the predetermined moment. Among the most evocative tracks is “Reckoning”: here we wander through abandoned buildings, following a mysterious call, which we do not know where it will lead us.
The mother of all music priestesses
“Metastasis,” sung in Russian, is the spread of evil of the soul felt in a subtle but widespread way. An American Gothic transfigured in the cold extremes of Siberia. We find no solace in the sick ballad of Sanctuary, where everything is still a blur. After a long cry tears still crowd our eyes. A piano arpeggio with a decadent flavor that would not be out of place in Le Masque’s old-fashioned songs. And it is still weeping that inhabits the notes and song of “River of Red,” a melody almost broken by the pain of a loss, of something now too far away. The entry of rhythm into the song reconnects us with the mother of all music priestesses. Indeed, the music priestess Nico taught the language of suffering through sublime, transcendent, ungrounded singing.
Where the death knells
This suggestion is confirmed by the poignant “Emerald Death,” icy, essential, where the chords on the electric guitar sound like death knells, like a march through the thick fog where there is no hope of seeing a familiar place to finally rest. It is a sonic narrative that seems to proceed from a dream, something that yields at every step a piece of reality.
Only the distant echo of the ghosts
A ringing of bells and a drum roll introduce “So Without,” taking us suddenly into the sonic universe of Soap&Skin, also suggested by a martial chant punctuated in a martial manner over a rough carpet of keyboards. But despite it all, one can detect an underlying sweetness, almost a prayer transfigured into a mournful chant, into a longing never quite abandoned, like a ritual fire hidden beneath the ashes. The distant noise of “So Without” ideally closes the circle drawn with the opening “As Within.” But there are no more words, only the distant echo of the ghosts of memory and dream.
Hermetic as a Tarkovsky film
And so closes this new sonic chapter of Kariti. Hermetic as a Tarkovsky film, where the sublime is just a step away from us. But we do not catch it, because our gaze is absorbed elsewhere.
Tracklist
- As Within
- A Mare Called Night
- Сон (Son)
- Vilomah (feat. Dorthia Cottrell)
- Reckoning
- Metastasis
- Sanctuary
- River of Red
- Emerald Death
- Toll
- So Without