"4 Women No Cry"

This is supposedly volume one of a series of CD/double-LP No New York-styledcompilations from Monika, all featuring 4 new female artists, eachallowed one-quarter of the running time, one vinyl side. I'mimmediately doubtful that the label will be able to maintain this levelof quality control over a larger series.
Monika
Each of these women not onlysounds like a brilliant new discovery, but each seems to both alongsidethe other three, but neatly within Monika's intimidating history. Theseare bedroom assemblages that beautifully support the title's rejectionof the solitary woman as locus for sentimentality or dependence. Allfour operate through the synthetic rearrangement and augmentation ofincredibly intimate recorded moments, be they hushed, after-hoursvocals, noodled guitar or nocturnal street and room ambience. Theresult is a very global sound, borrowing folk tropes from severalcultures (artists are Western and Eastern European and South American),weaving absurd post-modern fantasy tales, marshalling abstractpolitical statements, and dragging tense emotional ballads intoexpansive geographic space. Each artist contributes four to six tracks,within which each oscillates between more abstract cut-and-pasteselections and conventional hook-built songs, creating a successfuldynamic between potent atmosphere or sketchy ambience and charged popsongs that rival some of Monika's best. Rosario Bléfari and ÈglantineGouzy show particular mastery for microtonal percussion programmingcapable of piercing the music's small spaces, introducing the sounds ofthe street into a song's rhythmic milieu, or skittering around a smoothvocal. Despite the wealth of surrounding matter, the vocals do becomethe focal point for each artist's contribution; their voices so uniqueand expressive that they demand center stage, at least two of thempulling off Spanish and French rapped lyrics after crooning with nakeddelicacy in the previous tracks. Gouzy shuffles from creeky, Bjorkiannaïveté in "Nurse Song" to a complementary, provocative and playfulstyle in the obscure "Zone A." It's impossible to pick a favorite amongthese four artists, or to adequately represent even one of them in asound sample. Each is at once a great melody-maker and uncompromisedsculptor of diverse sounds, making this, my favorite compilation so farthis year, a hard first volume for Monika to top. - Andrew Culler

samples:

• Rosario Bléfari Partir y Rununciar
• Tusia Beridze Gorod
• Èglantine Gouzy Zone A

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