Janina Angel Bath | Gypsy Woman | 2xLP

Description

Keying off of Indian traditional music, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Janina Angel Bath creates contemplative soundscapes on Gypsy Woman, sometimes singing impressionistic lyrics over extended melodies in the disembodied manner of Björk or wailing moodily like a becalmed Yoko Ono.Bath handles most of the instruments herself, among them guitars, keyboards, flutes, percussion, and tambura and bansuri. Joss Jaffe’s tabla adds a particularly Indian flavor to the early track “Everyday Is Different,” but Indian music is the basis of much of the sound, particularly the drone effects characteristic of it. Although Bath sings in English, she adopts the phrasing and cadences of Eastern music, so that her voice becomes an instrument even when it is intoning recognizable words. The music may be useful in meditation for Westerners, representing as it does a hybrid style in which East meets West.

AllMusic Review by William Ruhlmann