Search - Inna & Farlanders :: The Dream Of Endless Nights

When Russian pop music isn't blatantly aping bad Western rock, it often combines folk roots with 20th-century chops, a back-to-the-future progressive music more about Igor Stravinsky than Jethro Tull. Inna and the Highlanders are of this ilk, and the quintet's best material adds Oriental and klezmer tinges to traditional Russian folk tunes rearranged for a lively combination of old-school instruments--clarinets, the wooden kaliuka flute, and the trumpetlike "sherpherd's horn"--alongside a jazzy drummer and melodically bubbling fretless bass. A sense of pagan magic underlies Inna's original songs; she sings of "weaving my crafty net of lace" in one, and of "not gathering grass to cast a spell" in another. The album's wildest track, however, is "Easter," an unrestrained, rapping incantation borrowed directly from the Russian Orthodox tradition. --Richard Gehr