ŠIROM – For You, This Eve, the Wolves Will Be Enchantingly Forsaken (Single)
"Širom fashion maximalist avant-garde soundscapes from antique acoustic instruments like the balafon and hurdy gurdy. Their artfully rootless roots music makes an impassioned statement both aesthetically and, more opaquely, politically too.” -- Uncut
The Slovenian avant-folk trio Širom are back with a sonically and thematically expansive 5th album; a thrilling follow-up to their widely praised 2022 release The Liquified Throne of Simplicity. Navigating almost two dozen instruments (some of which they've handcrafted), and hypnotic compositions that often exceed ten minutes in length, Ana Kravanja, Iztok Koren and Samo Kutin court patient, deep-dive listeners via intricately woven atmospheres, rhythms and sonics.
In the Wind of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper is arguably the sharpest evocation yet of the group's highly collective music process, enveloping rustic melodic folklore, outernational textures, non-linear song structures and dissonance, and a buzzing ambiance that can at times feel like an ecstatic ritual.
Few experimental ensembles from the last decade have created an ouevre as singular and unmistakable as that of this far-sighted trio from the disparate landscapes of Slovenia. Širom truly sound like no one else.
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It’s just after eight on a lovely early summer’s evening in Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital. The city’s increasingly metropolitan skyline can only be viewed in glimpses from here, for we’re a mile or so away on the edge of a forest. This far from the urban racket, the only audible sound is the expectant buzz from the some of the city’s sizeable experimental music tribe, with a sprinkling of tourists wondering what they’ve let themselves in for. The Širom machine, a home-made contraption criss-crossed with strings, taut with percussion and pumped full of air, is about to be cranked up again. Slovenia’s best and most singular band are back, with a very fine record to play you.
Not that they’ve really been away. They tour regularly at intimate venues they could sell out many times over, and peel off for an almost constant stream of personal and side-projects: Terry Riley's In C with Ana the night after Širom’s appearance, a stunning solo show from Samo in late June on homemade bass harp and what sounded like a bag of hammers being dropped from a great height, a new LP from Iztok’s industrial/sludge/doom outfit Hexenbrutal, among many others. They don’t believe in rationing themselves, and are driven by an unshakeable belief in what they are doing. They are available and approachable, have plenty of edge but no side. Paradoxically, they’ve rarely received as much love at home as they have abroad. Slovenia much prefers reserve and faint praise, meaning that it has never really reckoned with the fact that Širom are its most successful musical export since Laibach.
When we spoke to them ahead of the release of their third album nearly six years ago, they obviously had no idea what lay in store for them: appearances on notable international end-of-year best-of lists (e.g. #11 at The Quietus), praise from fellow drone enthusiasts Lankum, Thurston Moore slipping into their sold-out Café Oto show, a deliriously reviewed performance at Le Guess Who?. Bafflement and joy have continued to flow in equal measure, although I think we have finally learned to stop asking them whether their music is improvised and, if not, how on earth they manage to remember it all when they step on stage. They just do. Širom are much more than the sum of their technical idiosyncrasies. Your only task is to listen to the music.
What remains of that Širom and the peak they reached with The Liquified Throne of Simplicity (2022)? That record had a heavier groove than their previous work, and was a kind of rural Slovenian kosmische that indicated where they might go next. The question is worth asking because they seem to have ended up somewhere else entirely here. They do, however, remain supreme creators of mood and landscape; their song titles continue to delight, sounding like those moments of clarity you have when dozing that you can’t quite capture upon waking; and you’ll still have trouble humming any of the tunes.
Or maybe you won’t. Because the band are more melodic and (dare we say it) accessible here than they have ever been. The insistent grooves and trademark texture are still present, but there’s a new-found sense of linearity that largely replaces the stacks of sound and detailed collages that have characterised their work to date. There is suddenly more air, allowing a string of sublime melodies, in ‘Curls Upon the Neck, Ribs Upon the Mountain’ and ‘Hope in an All-Sufficient Space of Calm’ in particular, to flourish. Everyone’s still speaking, just not at the same time, but the drama level remains high. The resulting sense of space, of emergence and arrival, is certainly something a Tim Hecker or indeed Park Jiha fan would instantly recognise, and is perhaps most evident on ‘The Hangman's Shadow Fifteen Years On’, the standout track for this listener and one of the best things they have done.
Where has this shift, which still yields an immediately recognisably Širom, come from? They were recently asked about their sources of inspiration; this being them, it wasn’t other bands or musics, but nature in its wildest form (Samo), painting and an ongoing process of self-exploration (Ana), and the hope that human beings could at least begin to recover their sense of solidarity with and respect for others (Iztok). There also have been one or two changes in the band’s personal dynamics, as Iztok points out. For sure, this is as close as Širom have ever got to a state-of-the-world, state-of-their-lives record.
The sun has just set as they finish with that very un-Širom thing: an encore. Just over half the set has been from the new record, which is what people have really come to hear. ‘We don’t want to play something that sounds like it already exists,’ said Samo a few years back, and they still don’t. File this under contemporary classical, imaginary folk or rural underground, file it under Slovenian, file it under anything you want. People will find this wonderful album regardless. Or perhaps, more probably, it will find them.
