Andra Ljos

Andra Ljos

Fountain Of Inspiration

Not Not Fun

Both albums by Russian Armenian artist Aleksandra Evseeva aka Andra Ljos are themed around mythical wellsprings: last year’s debut of bewitched synthetic exotica, The Oasis Of Little Birds, and her latest, Fountain Of Inspiration. Conceived as a suite of imaginary ancient Grecian compositions for organ and sampler, the songs thread the saga of a sacred Greek island water sanctuary where the nymph Castalia drowned while escaping Apollo, and where visitors to the Oracle of Delphi bathed before receiving prophecy.  Fountain feels appropriately holy and harrowing, eight cryptic processionals of keys, strings, sitar, backward whispers, and percussion, like hidden hymns for forbidden temples. Her background as a member of St. Petersburg wilderness ambient trio 2muchachos (alongside Vladimir Karpov / X.Y.R.) manifests in the music’s devotional mood and arcane reveries, conjured in mystic solitude at her Vilnius home studio. Andra is her mother’s pet name for her and Ljos is Icelandic for ‘light,’ due to having white hair; but combined they create an enlightened presence, channeling the siren frequencies of enchanted thresholds to realms both unreal and, till now, unheard.

Andra Ljos

Megalithic Statues of Vishapakar

Not Not Fun

The fourth album by Vilnius-based composer Aleksandra Evseeva aka Andra Ljos is as runic and ritualistic as the Bronze Age monoliths for which it’s named: Megalithic Statues of Vishapakar. Found mainly in the Armenian Highlands, vishaps are cigar-shaped slabs of stone carved with fish heads or snakes, depicting a sacred serpent of Armenian folklore thought to protect sources of water from drought and ruin. The music evokes a similarly arcane and devotional air, between raga, séance, and 4th world hallucination. The track titles allude to significant vishap discovery sites, spanning lakes, bays, mountains, and temples. Wood block percussion wobbles beneath lattices of looped keys, golden organ, synthetic strings and flutes, distant birds, muffled voices, and the soft wash of restless waters. Evseeva’s muse may be mined from her Armenian heritage but the songs conjure a mood more elusive and expansive – pensive pastorals for a land of long shadows and ancient fears, strewn with cryptic relics swiftly dissipating into myth.