The saga of The Magic Carpathians, formed by Anna Nacher and Marek Stycznski and using a revolving cast of guest musicians continues to explore traditional Easter and Central European folk, blended with an eerie psych-drone that never fails to be compelling and moving. This latest, putting tabla and bass center stage on many tracks, evokes both their regional and psychic influences, creating a deep, noisy atmospheric triumph.

Nacher?s vocals run from the haunting to the frantic, and her barely hinged emoting helps her transcend the improv drones and rhythmic textures to help the five tracks here rise to the prophetic. Nacher?s guitar work is mezmerizing, as is Stycznski?s loops, field recordings and other sound generators.

?Lechistan?s Electric Chair? is a 17 minute tour-de-force, covering a lot of territory, from ethnic folk and jazz to noise. Eastern and Central Europe has a history of great tragedy as well as a well-developed sense of dark absurd humor in order to cope and ennoble that tragedy, and it informs the mystical aspect of this record.

The other epic, ?Radio Lechistan,? clocks in at over fifteen minutes and creates its own world, in sound and voice, like a legend from the Balkans come alive in the present.

Shorter but no less hypnotic are ?Music Store,? ?Larry?s Place? and ? Conversations at the Edge of the World.? Each sound ancient and post-modern at once, and that is the Carpathians strength: the ability to make magic from both fleeting and eternal sounds and stories, and to weave from them a majestic yawp. 10/10 -- Mike Wood (18 December, 2006)