"Koumu Lil" single artwork
Today Lithuanian/Belgian duo Merope share a second look at their new body of music, sharing new track “Koumu Lil”, and announce European live dates including a show at this year's Le Guess Who? Festival.
Led by celebrated Lithuanian singer and kanklės player Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, Merope offer a uniquely contemporary vision of ancient Baltic music, widening Jurgelevičiūtė's celestial folk reinterpretations with ornate, experimentally-minded guitar and electronics from Belgian multi-instrumentalist Bert Cools. Their music is tough to categorise: its roots are buried deep in the soil of Lithuania's traditional forms, but Merope use the past to help them lean into the future, motivated by the notion that these ancestral words and melodies might have further relevance when shuffled with ideas from across the cultural map. Tangling elements gleaned from jazz, ambient music, 20th century minimalism and kosmische into their moving, humanist compositions, Merope provide a soundtrack for today's international landscape - a place where culture can flourish, adapt and interact, evolving to formulate a more universal and more harmonic message.
Today they follow recent track “Aglala” (spruce) with new single "Koumu Lil". The delicate and ethereal track visualizes a small horse playing in the field — a spirit of nature and newborn bliss. They experimented in creating a digital image of the kanklės and Indrė's voice, slicing them into pieces and rearranging them.
Listen to “Koumu Lil” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfj9sHQi4OI
By their third album 'Naktės', Merope had fully developed their signature, taking inspiration from the moonlight on a suite of ambient folk abstractions recorded at the dead of night. They expanded their scope, and their reach, on their fourth album 'Salos', made alongside Vilnius chamber choir Jauna Muzika and conductor Vaclovas Augustinas. Released in 2021 on Belgium's STROOM label, this record featured contributions from a handful of other friends, including múm's Gyða Valtýsdóttir, Sigur Rós keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson and veteran Pakistani-American instrumentalist and producer Shazad Ismaily. It netted Merope significant international acclaim - one of the album's stand-out tracks, 'Oi toli', was even played by Björk during her DJ set at Le Bourse de commerce in Paris.
Since then, they've been collaborating extensively, working with American folk musician Sam Amidon, members of Efterklang and embarking on a series of shows with Ismaily. And Merope's sound continues to progress, absorbing Jurgelevičiūtė's, Cools' and their collaborators' multitude of experiences and diverse histories in the search for art that's truly trans-cultural. Now, they prepare for the next chapter.
Live dates:
01/09 - Meakusma festival - Eupen
08/11 - Le Guess Who? - Utrecht, NL
20/11 - Viernulvier (Ruiskamer) - Gent (double bill with Alex Zhang Hungtai)
23/11 - Explore The North - Leeuwarden, NL
29/11 - Het Bos - Antwerpen
01/12 - Bozar - Brussel
Links:
https://meropemusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/meropemusic/
https://stroomtv.bandcamp.com/ |
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