Talinka - Talinka

Supported by Robert Wyatt, Talinka is one of those releases that will make you tug your heart of beautiful, soft, and gentle releases that is very deep, distinct, and efficient that MoonJune Records have released. Back in August of 2015 in my review of Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble’s The Whistle Blower, I once described Tali Atzmon’s vocals was a nod to Combustible Edison’s Miss Lily Banquette on the closing title-track which showed their sense of humor. Listening to Talinka, it’s different.

You can feel Tali’s presence on Talinka’s sole self-titled release as if she’s singing right behind you as if you are walking through a ghost town as the pin dropped at the exact moment. Her vocals reminisce of the late great Peggy Lee. The album is this combination between Jazz, Folk, Tango, and the Great American Songbook. There are moments that the music is haunting and ominous at times with a chilling atmosphere at times.

With the album cover in which Tali did the image for, it’s very much a nod to Black Sabbath’s sole self-titled debut release in 1970, alongside Tali’s vocals, it considers Jenny Bliss Bennett on Viola de Gamba, Violin, Flute, and Vocals; Frank Harris on Piano; Enzo Zirilli on Percussion; Yaron Stavi on Double Bass; and Gilad Atzmon on Bass Clarinet, Soprano Sax, and Accordion. He also produced the album as well.

The album was recorded last year at The Fish Factory Studio in London in November last year and mixed there also in December of that year. You can close your eyes and imagine it’s either 1939 or 1942 in the smoky nightclubs and it’s something straight out of the movies between Casablanca or Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy, Tali is hypnotizing the audience of her singing and it fascinates the crowd and giving her a big stamp of approval.

Not to mention the six highlights on here that just made listeners open the doors more and more opened than ever before. Invitation begins with this haunting introduction by Gilad’s bass clarinet followed by Stavi’s Brazilian bossa-nova bass line along with Jenny’s violin and Enzo’s brushes on the percussion. The accordion makes you walk along the sandy beaches in the Northwestern part of Brazil in a place called Bahia as the team follow Tali right behind her.

Losing Vision is a response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis that happened last year. Gilad’s bass clarinet and Jenny’s Viola de Gamba create this mourning loss as you can hear the cries and whispers and knowing the struggle of a cry for a change, is going to be a gigantic long and winding road. Gilad and Jenny make you walk into an empty street from an aftermath that just happened that was once peaceful, turned into rubble.

The chilling short instrumental Heimat is an eerie composition with crying vocalization and into the deep waters of classical-avant-garde jazz while the menacing tango vibrations of the Jazz standard, You Don’t Know What Love Is gives my arm-hairs go up at the right momentum as if they strike you like thunder crashing down towards the small little town with powerful notes.

When You Are Gone is a nod to Bali H’ai. It’s a sad and beautiful song that Tali does. You can close your eyes and imagine walking through a sad-and-lonely club of people who lost their loved ones through tragedy and sympathizing with what they had to go through and the struggle to move on, is hard and slow baby steps. The accordion, violin, and double bass set the scenario of what is happening.

The characterization of this person is coming to an end after what has happened to them. The music on here, I got this feeling that is this nod to perhaps one of the most amazing bands to come out of the Rock In Opposition movement thanks to Jenny’s improvisation on her violin, is a band called Univers Zero. And then there’s Baroque Bottom.

You have this soaring soprano sax and the flute delving into the bright clouds and hope there is a new day. The vocalizations set this characterization of a person at being at the lowest low, knowing as I’ve mentioned a second ago, there’s a new beginning and a new chapter for them.

Talinka’s self-titled release is a return to real good music and real Jazz music. For me, listening to this album, is like a breath of fresh air and knowing that there is some good music who want to keep the flaming fires of the genre of the sound of Jazz, Classical, Folk, and Tango alive and well. Talinka has done that. And I hope they will continue to do more in the years to come.