South Of No North

"Based on" the original soundtrack from a film about Kosovo by Ferenc Moldovanyi, Tibor Szemzõ's haunting score featuring members of the musical ensemble the Gordian Knot Company is an eerie evocation of tumultuous times in Eastern Europe at the turn of the millennium. Utilizing moments of silence, minimalist structures, light percussion, voices of adults and children from Kosovo, flutes, and prepared piano, there is a slow, almost depressing quality expressed that conjures images of death. The soft voices sung in unison, sounding as though they come from the depths of a deep well, contrast with the chanting narrative vocals that are indecipherable to the English-speaking world. Szemzõ's score is largely about atmosphere, as the static rhythms and repetitive notes ebb and fall, never building to any logical conclusions, which is possibly part of the point. At its essence this is film music, though of a specialized kind, serving a secondary role as background music, but it is too disturbing to discard so easily. Through his compositions, Szemzõ tells a story of cold inhumanity, of tethered children deprived of the vagaries of ordinary childhood, of a landscape colored by desperate acts of violence. The sparse liner notes do not shed light on the meaning or method of the compositions; the listener is left to interpret them without reference even to the subject matter of the film. Yet, the notes cry for recognition, as strings juxtaposed against drums and a droning male voice stir the soul. The "bonus" video track sets the tone with a post-noir atmosphere in which children inadvertently and perhaps naïvely hold hope for better times. ~ Steven Loewy|