Moon Far Away - Athanor Eurasia - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Since their foundation in 1994, Moon Far Away, hailing from Arkhangelsk, Russia, have developed a unique style out of the established neo-folk tropes of the western world and the musical heritage of their home turf - the Russian North; a hotbed within the country for literature, visual arts, architecture and, of course, music. With influences as diverse as their background, they engaged in neoclassical dark wave and world music on earlier releases, and have remained a relatively unknown gemstone until this day. In the meantime, the group has honed it's colorful blend to quasi-perfection, which is more than evident on it's fifth record and Auerbach Tonträger/Prophecy Productions debut, InchAthanor EurasiaInch. While deftly weaving together acoustic guitars and wind instruments, as well as both female and male voices, this new album is a neo-folk of outstanding quality with the traditional song always in focus. In part, the result harks back to the likes of Death In June, Forseti or Sol Invictus (whose Tony Wakeford appears as a guest on 'Celebrate!') whereas other tracks are adaptions of passed-down Northern Russian folk tunes the band collected on expeditions to the Arkhangelsk Oblast - the musicians' subarctic home region. Within this dense tapestry all threads, regardless of their geographical or cultural origin, make up a unified whole that defies categorization. Thus, InchAthanor EurasiaInch venerates the tradition of shared space both conceptually and musically. InchIt is not about country borders or maps, emigrants or geopoliticsInch, stresses Count Ash, the group's masked leader. InchWe like to think of InchAthanor EurasiaInch as the first album of Eurasian neo-folk in that it is based on the canons outlined in the West, yet enriched with the ideas and sentiments born in the East. This is how we have been living and creating for many years, feeling complete