Sherpa, Tanzlinde: Dancing in Trees
Posted in Reviews on January 20th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
It’s a rare band who can affect a folkish sensibility, a psychedelic lushness and still maintain an underlying tonal presence to connote a heavy influence. Far, far rarer than the number of bands who claim to be able to do it, anyhow. From Abruzzo, Italy, come Sherpa, an open-minded and semi-experimental five-piece who make their late-2016 debut on Sulatron Records with Tanzlinde and throughout it gracefully play between styles of heavy psych, folk, post-rock, pop, and classic prog without ever losing that sense of presence in the material. Comprised of Matteo Dossena, Ivano Legnini, Enrico Legnini, Axel Di Lorenzo and Pierluca Michetti and featuring a range of guest contributions throughout — the back of the CD lists: Lilia on vocals “Robert W.,” Ayu Shi and Ila Maa on vocals for “Loto,” “Dubinuska,” “Sherpa” and “Big Foot,” Fabiana Giordano on vocals for “Dune” and the title-track, Fabio Duronio and Graziano Zuccarino on pipes, percussion, etc. on “Loto,” Fabio Cardone on synth and xylophone for “Big Foot” and sundry other things on sundry other of Tanzlinde‘s total 10 songs — it’s little wonder the resulting feel is so expansive.
Though the members of Sherpa released a self-titled full-length in 2013 under their prior moniker, Edith Aufn, it’s important to remember that Tanzlinde is their first outing in their current guise, and so it strikes as even more ambitious and even more triumphant in exceeding those ambitions. It was recorded between 2014 and 2016, brings in all these different people throughout who take part in adding to already varied material that basks in a diversity of influence, but Tanzlinde never loses its structural integrity, never gives up its sense of purpose, and at no point does Sherpa let go of the overarching mood and exploration at their core.
No small feat as they move from “Loto,” which reminds of Hypnos 69 at their quietest, to the all-drift psych-folk serenity of “Robert W.” earlier, to the space-ritualized pulsartonics of “Big Foot” and beyond, but true enough to their newer moniker, Sherpa act as a guide for their listeners through their first album’s rich and immersive course. There are a few factors that allow them to do this. First, the individual songs are relatively short. Only “Loto” reaches past six minutes, and none of the others top five — atmospheric closer “Plot” is the shortest at 3:04 — so pieces are quick to come and go, almost like flashes of different worlds being visited throughout this journey, a glimpse of a thing, enough to dive in and then move on. This is especially effective as opener “Dune” moves into “Robert W.” and “Dubinuska,” and Tanzlinde begins to unfold this process to its audience.
What allows the band to work this way, on a more practical level, is the rhythm section. Isn’t it always? As much of a delight as the shimmering guitars and dreamscape vocals of “Of Coke and Steel” are, it’s the bassline and the subtle push of the drums that hold the song together, and that’s true of just about the entirety of Tanzlinde save perhaps for the aforementioned finale, which is basically an ambient soundsape — though there’s some percussion there as well. Other tracks, whether they take place as a build à la the wallop duo of “Tanzlinde” and “Sherpa” back to back in the album’s first half or the ’70s churn of “Big Foot” and later fuzzy push of “Of Coke and Steel” in the second, Sherpa are able to enact these various movements because there is essentially no chance of their material coming apart as a result. Taken in combination with the efficiency in their sonic storytelling, and Tanzlinde emerges clean and clearheaded in its psych-prog meld and is able to hold to such gorgeousness as a defining element.
That becomes particularly prevalent on “Magnetic White Tree,” which leads off the second half of Tanzlinde and sets the ground for “Loto,” “Big Foot” and “Of Coke and Steel” to come, but is true nonetheless of the whole affair from “Dune” onward. Credit has to go to Dossena and to Umberto Palazzo, who both contributed to the mixing, because the low end is never overwhelming, and as it should, the bass and acoustic and electric guitars act in complementary rather than competitive fashion. Knowing that Sherpa worked together in a prior band helps explain some of that chemistry, but Tanzlinde benefits from a fullness of sound as much as coherence of purpose, and solidifies many of the impulses they showed on Edith Aufn‘s self-titled, so that the handclaps-into-chants of “Dubinuska” don’t feel the slightest bit incongruous as they otherwise might leading to the nodding, crashing climax that ends that song, and “Of Coke and Steel” holds to its languid, beautiful drift and affects the impression of “Plot” as more than just an outstretching epilogue.
In its breadth, Tanzlinde succeeds in establishing the progressive aspects of what Sherpa do aesthetically, but the flow they’re able to execute from one piece to the next is no less crucial in making the album as staggering as it is. Even with the formidable endorsement of Sulatron behind it, Tanzlinde hits as a welcome surprise, and one hesitates to speculate on what Sherpa might do next for fear of jinxing the magic they’ve been able to conjure on this wonderful first offering.
