Album Review: Esmerine - Dalmak

The chamber theatrics encapsulating Montreal's Esmerine are essentially in check on Dalmak. Learning To Crawl leads with meandering, ruminative strings and doesn't stray far. Bruce Cawdron, fresh from his latest Godspeed endeavours, and his compatriots really step things into the shadows with the title track, a dark Turkish folk trajectory (Dalmak was mostly recorded in Istanbul with the aid of local musicians). Lost River Blues is Morricone if scoring a western set in Anatolia; Translator's Clos soars, a menagerie of Eastern instruments wielded with dexterity and verve. Dalmak is transcendentalism across cultures that doesn't come with the cringe.