Floodplain
Artist:  Kronos Quartet
Label:  Nonesuch
Time:  CD: 12 Tracks / 79 mins

The Kronos Quartet has been at the forefront of its genre for a couple of decades now. I know of no string quartet that has pushed the boundaries of its format so consistently and successfully, and here they do more of the same. 

This time the boundaries are the cultural limits of East and West: the disc is themed around the inevitable destruction that comes to cities on floodplains, and a hope for the way that they rebuild after the floodwaters have wreaked their worst. Journalist Anastasia Tsioulcas writes in the liner notes about the ambivalence of these waters, on whose metaphorical banks we have built “our cultural achievements, rituals, myths, and most deeply held beliefs about ourselves and our collective identity. Those waters nourish, sustain, and bind us, but when they flood our vision to the point of blindness, they also threaten to unmoor us. We can lose our sense of common humanity with those beyond the banks.” She notes Kronos violinist and producer David Harrington’s observation that the disc was created in one era of American politics and released in a very different one.

The range of the disc is phenomenal. Firstly, the tracks come from very different times: “Mugam Beyati Shiraz” from Azerbaijan is some 700 years old, while the epic “... Hold Me, Neighbor, in this Storm ...” is from 2007. In between are works from a century ago, the 1940s and the 1970s, as well as traditional pieces. While its tone is primarily minor key and a little mournful, the music does encompass various moods. There is lament (the nine-minute “Mugam Beyati Shiraz” is a deeply felt and poignant piece, featuring solo violin) and there is meditative work (“Kara Kemiz” is a simple, tranquil contemplative track, played only on solo cello and violin; and the Indian “Raga Mishra Bhairavi: Alap” is quiet, moody and chilled). Balkan-style dance features among the upbeat parts, such as the intense twelve-minute live piece “Getme Getme (Don't Leave, Don't Leave).”

These mainly instrumental works range in length from the opening “Ya Habibi Ta’ale (My Love Come Quickly),” a pan-Arab hit from the 1940s, which sadly doesn’t even reach three minutes, to the closing “... Hold Me, Neighbor, in this Storm ...” which clocks in at over twenty. The former is a highly memorable, radio-friendly mix of what sounds like a theme from popular Tchaikovsky mixed with a wild tango and all wrapped up in exotic eastern textures. The latter is written by a Serbian exile, Aleksandra Vrebalov, who has fashioned a brilliantly evocative work. It hits its narrative peak around the thirteen-minute mark, when a dance-like violin is joined by background voices. Shortly after this come several clean, strong chords, which are followed in turn by an eerily quiet and foreboding passage. Words would not tell more vividly of the pain of some village community being ravaged.

You could physically fit no more onto this disc, yet the only piece I would be quick to lose is the short Iraqi track “Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me”. Its frantic Choubi rhythms are a little disturbing, and seem unnecessary. There is enough range already in this collection, and because some tracks are already too concentrated for casual listening, this one seems to take away from the album, rather than adding to it.

The source of this project is found in a Beirut market a decade ago, when Harrington was looking for a representative sample of Lebanese music and came across “Wa Habibi” among a selection of nearly 40 records. It struck him, because although it sounded eastern, he could not tell from what tradition it came. This Good Friday devotional song soon found itself in the quartet’s regular shows – not least because the Islamic-sounding piece was a Christian work about self-sacrifice (its lyric includes the line, “He who sees you grieves for you”) that challenged people’s assumptions in the post-9/11 era. 

It is in this spirit of open communication that the band includes the track “Tashweesh” by Palestinian collective Ramallah Underground. Its title means “Interference” and it begins with fuzzy static sounds before hitting a completely contemporary and hypnotic loop of rhythmic melody.

Anyone needing further proof of the band’s serious intent with their music need only look at their instrumentation for this collection. Normally playing 2 violins, viola and cello, the quartet not only double up on ethnic folk instruments at times here, but on “Tèw Semagn Hagèré” they also have their Tanzanian instrument builder, Walter Kitundu, create new instruments. These were based on the Ethiopian begena, a 10-string buzzy-sounding lyre, historically played mostly by Orthodox monks and said to be descended from King David’s harp.

Those interested in getting a feel for the disc can find a player on www.kronosquartet.org that covers the two instant radio-friendly tracks, the quiet cello-and-violin piece and an excerpt from the epic final work. Floodplain takes a little perseverance, but it is a very generous collection that rewards such attention.

Derek Walker