Album Review: Xylouris White - Black Peak

Many may have expected the collaboration between Jim White (Dirty Three) and Cretan lute player George Xylouris to be a one-off collaboration.

But now they're onto album number two, which features Xylouris singing on more tracks and the pair digging deeper into their primitive jazz and post-rock sense of musical adventure. The mood of the album varies from languid to visceral. Forging is a galloping piece of pagan acoustic metal that thrills with its speed and momentum, while other tracks explore minimal mood, drones and percussive dissonance with similar verve and free-spiritedness. Black Peak feels instinctive and symbiotic, a master class from two musicians taking their traditional instruments right out to the edge of avant-garde darkness.