The reaction to Tall Tall Shadow (Secret City), Basia Bulat’s third full-length, has been exceedingly positive, a happy circumstance for a performer who made her thus-far moderate fame on the folk singer/songwriter circuit and is now looking to switch things up. Bulat’s first two albums, adept enough affairs, traded mostly in the light arrangements and soft dynamics of contemporary folk music. If her talents extend beyond many of her peers (notably her staggering facility on a wide range of stringed instruments from the dulcimer to the charango), her aesthetic palette as presented on her first two albums was largely traditional. Tall Tall Shadow, by contrast, opens with the stomping, gradual crescendo of the title track, an immediate announcement of increasing speed and volume that sustains for the rest of the record. It’s a sonic gamble for Bulat, who for the first time finds herself pushing her aesthetics into more energetic territory. Still, the song structures and modes are of a piece with her previous releases, making Tall Tall Shadow a furtherance rather than a divergence from her previous work. Bulat will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on her.
Bulat: One of the best parts about being a musician is meeting other musicians in one’s travels. A few years ago, I met a Finnish musician who played the kantele, which is a Finnish member of the dulcimer and zither family of instruments. The kantele is a gorgeous instrument that as far as I know is made of wood and horsehair strings, which are plucked by hand or struck by a small wooden hammer. Of course, if I encounter an instrument I don’t know too much about, I end up spending hours afterwards watching videos of it being played online, which is how I found this awesome video of children playing “Hard Rock Hallelujah” (the winning song in the 2006 Eurovision song contest) arranged for kantele. These kids are amazing.
Video after the jump.
