Stanislav Judin and Asnāte Rancāne Op.3 LP release concert

Folklorist Asnāte Rancāne and musician Stanislavs Judins met at a time when they were both still searching for their artistic voice. The duo's debut recording Op. 2, which earned high praise from listeners and critics alike, marked the merging of folkloric heritage and free improvisation without clearly defined genre boundaries. They still maintain this free-flowing approach; the artists are not tied to a traditional song structure and can venture into searches for new forms and textures using collage techniques from folk and contemporary music. Each of these elements - both words and sounds - can exist separately, yet together they create a special, unrepeatable atmosphere.

The sonic geography of Op. 3 spans all of Europe - from Bulgaria to the British Isles, including ancient Prussia and the historical lands of Latvia. If one were to look for the unifying element among these seemingly different regions, it would be the music of an era when people were whole and the musician served as a mediator - a carrier of different stories and musical fragments. Words and sounds were formed from ambiguous motifs accumulated in communal experience. Thus a work of art was often greater than its author, inhabited by an irrational message, and the performer merged with the music, just as a person merges with nature, aware of themselves as part of it - a tree, a river, or a mist.

Yet Op. 3 is not a restoration of the past, but creation that does not sound like anything heard before. The uniqueness of this recording lies not only in the fusion of different musicians' artistic handwritings into a single whole, but also in the sense that the basis of this music is a vertical of time - a call and response between past, present, and future.