Best of 2019 #10: Svetlost – “Odron Ritual Orchestra”

This is an album that’ll get into your blood is how I began my write-up of Odron Ritual Orchestra for The Bandcamp Daily.  The Skopje, Macedonia 11-piece ensemble Светлост, or Svetlost, is a throwback to the avant-garde big bands of the ‘70s, where chaos and raging intensity amplified sweet melodicism and a thundering groove.  No matter how often this music gets played (and for me personally, it is very often indeed), its propensity for thrills never wanes even a little bit, and the impact of its huge surges of intensity just seems to keep getting stronger.  Despite the absolute show of force and raw power this music represents, there is something remarkably unguarded and vulnerable about it, as if the musicians ripped open their chests to expose their hearts as proof of their sincerity.  There is something terribly cathartic about this music, in the way it lets everything out, and how it sweeps the listener up in its embrace and carries it away.  The music is a throwback sound to a previous jazz era, but the heart-on-its-sleeve emotional display feels very relevant to today.  It’s what we need to get through these days.  This is one of the best things I’ve heard all year, and I just can’t enough of it.

Your album personnel:  Ninoslav Spirovski (clarinet, soprano & tenor saxophones), Petar Hristov (soprano & alto saxophones), Ivan Trajanoski (alto & baritone saxophones), Vasko Bojadžiski (tenor saxophone), Bisera Bazer (trombone), Vladan Drobicki (trombone), Kristijan Novkovski (drums, percussion), Dragan Teodosiev (drums, percussion), Konstantin Hadži Кocev (piano), Panče Bujukliev (minibrute), and Deni Omeragić (contrabass).

Released on PMG Recordings.

Music from Skopje, Macedonia.

I wrote about the album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Listen | Read more | Available at:  Bandcamp