Reviews: (Vital Weekly) Behind Tungu is Sergey Senchuk, who plays voice, acoustic bass, field recording and sampling. His first album, he calls “abstract ambient”, followed by two rhythmic albums and then he invited Aya Ogawa for a collaborative track, which was much to his liking, so he asked others to send a bit of music and create improvised music even when not in the same room. Ogawa isn’t on this CD, but with find (among others, I am mentioning names I recognised, Renne Lussier, Fred Lonberg-Holm, DJ Sniff, Xavier Charles, Phillippe Petit, Sainkho Namtchylak, Giuseppe Verticchio, Jaap Blook, Guillaume Garguad and others, 19 in total. How does one approach such a release? Cover in hand, looking at names and instruments? There is a variety of them here: turntables, bass, voice, sampling, clarinet, electric guitar, violin and so on. Because Tungu plays various himself, figuring out who’s doing what here is always challenging. Tracks are typically between three and five minutes, which means there is entirely some speed and variation in this album, but one also gets easily lost in the melee. Many of these pieces are traditional improvised affairs, with some exceptions, adding to further confusion. It’s, however, also a most enjoyable album, with the duet with Jaap Blonk my favourite one, with voice, guitar and cello merging into almost a pop song. It’s only sometimes my cup of tea, but indeed an excellent, highly varied album. - Frans de Waard
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