Laïs Lenski

Now and then while browsing through the new releases on eMusic, something I’ve never heard of will catch my eye: an interesting title or a striking graphic, something that makes me wonder what the music is like, and listen to the 30-second samples. Most of the time that’s the end of it. But every now and then I strike gold. Such was the case with this album (and here’s the image that caught my eye, as well as the samples that caught my ear). I ended up getting the entire album, and it’s very, very beautiful.

Laïs is a vocal trio from Belgium, comprised of the three women on the album cover. They’ve released several albums on their own, which I haven’t heard. The cellist is Simon Lenski.

Here they are in an informal performance of “Hymne,” the first song on the album. Translation welcome; one of my few reservations about the album is that I haven’t been able to find English translations of the songs in other languages.

If you like this, you’ll like the whole album, or most of it. The material is wide-ranging, from folk songs to Nico to Shostakovitch, and is mostly wonderful. It took some digging for me to discover who wrote most of it, because that information isn’t provided by eMusic, or even on the Lais web site. I found it here. Some of the songs were written by one or more of the performers. The highlight for me is a stunning setting of a poem by Colley Cibber, “Blind Boy” (text here). To my taste there is only one really weak track, the final one, “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby,” which many will recognize from the film O Brother Where Art Thou. I never was enthusiastic about the song, and it doesn’t particularly suit the group; I wish they’d chosen “Down to the River to Pray” instead. Apart from that, it’s a great album.