"Make what you will of the weather, the economy and the crumbling infrastructure, but for me, Eastern Europe has a distinct edge on its western counterpart. If you're lucky enough to ever find yourself in Warsaw or Budapest (not Prague, unfortunately -- German tourists have rendered it a hell of trinkets and cheap beer), ditch your guidebook for an afternoon and just wander the streets aimlessly. That melancholy you feel is a collective eulogy for the passing of the old order, a statelier, more honorable time that vanished with the First World War. It seems to spring from the very stone of the city streets, and duo Black Forest/Black Sea have managed, miraculously, to translate it into pure sound on their self-titled debut. A beguiling, mysterious record composed of equal parts Eastern European and Jewish folk, classical music, drone and free improv, Black Forest/Black Sea is, like the best art, rather difficult to pin down. Little is known about its origins, except that Jeffrey Alexander (formerly of The Iditarod) and Miriam Goldberg recorded it in Providence in a room full of instruments -- acoustic and electric guitars, cello, banjo, effects pedals, short-wave radio, drum machines and an old reel-to-reel. Occasionally, Goldberg's lilting voice enters the mix (as on album highlight "Blackbird on Gray Sky"), but the proceedings are mostly instrumental. Old World melodies enter on fingerpicked guitar and are buffeted by experimental breezes; classical figures become penetrating drones, tone clusters alternately support and obfuscate the main theme. This is the music of decay, but it maps out a dignified decline. Song by song analysis becomes irrelevant; this is an album meant to be consumed as such. Like the Hungarian bridges straddling the Danube, it has a foot in two worlds: the old Eastern Europe of myth, and the new, real, slightly uncomfortable modern age. It is exceptional and highly recommended." - Ben Hughes, Splendid, Downers Grove, IL
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