It was a Sunday morning, the 7th of August 2016, about 10:00 in the morning. It was slightly drizzly and we – my girlfriend, the
SeeD
crew, me, and a whole bunch of other Castlefest die-hards – were sitting on the hill overlooking the folk stage, listening to the gentle sounds of
The Moon and the Nightspirit,
while watching the Sunday crowd slowly filling up the grounds again. The perfect way to start a
Castlefest
morning.
Next up was a Spanish band that I, up to that point, didn’t know. But that was about to change! Fast! Within two songs that band had the whole crowd awake and dancing and me going for my camera.
(You can see one of the pictures I took then just below this paragraph)
That band was
Cuélebre
and their show worked better for waking me up than a liter of strong espresso would ever do! Obviously I bought their CD Oinos straight after the show and it is still being played monthly in the De Booy household. Especially the song Fodder for the Raven I consider a firm pagan folk classic.
What makes Cuélebre and that first album
Oinos, published in 2014, so unique is their
dark tribal sound; The deep roar of the didge combined with fast energetic drums, the dominant sound of bandleader Yhandros Huergo’s hurdy-gurdy combined with the haunting flute melodies flowing through the music like morning fog over the roughed scorched Spanish mountains.
Oinos makes me think of the pictures I’ve seen of
Extremadura;
the barren black peaks, the vultures circling the sky, a bobcat sliding through the undergrowth. Cuélebre makes the perfect soundtrack for that landscape: dark, tribal, and passionate. The whispered, half-sung, half-spoken vocals of Marta Gálves made it all complete, making
Oinos a unique sound in the European pagan folk scene.
In August 2017 Cuélebre released their second album
Anaman, with only bandleader Yhandros remaining from the line-up that recorded
Oinos. It didn’t change Cuélebre’s sound too much though. The biggest change were the vocals, the then ‘new’ singer Rose Avalon
(
Rose Avalon,
Ritual Duir)
has a background in jazz and melodic metal. Her voice made Cuélebre’s music more dynamic, more powerful, but slightly less ‘haunted’. The whole album has a more positive feel over it, without losing that strong tribal connection to the old Iberian tribes and the roughed Spanish landscape.
Now, finally, the long-awaited third CD,
Dijara arrived and it is a stunner! Like I mentioned before, there have been some line-up changes in the last couple of years, mainly in the vocal part, and again I was really interested in how it would affect Cuélebre ‘s sound.
Well, to answer that straight away:
Dijara is the perfect mix of
Oinos and
Anaman, taking the best elements of both albums. What remained is the strong tribal feel, the fast deep drums, and the haunting shards of flute cutting, weaving its way through the deep didge sound and the everpresent hurdy-gurdy. The vocals on the other hand returned to the more chanting, shamanic style we know of
Oinos, something I personally think suites Cuélebre’s music really well. I feel like Cuélebre’s sound is slightly ‘mean’ again, that rough edge is back in the sound. And I personally love it.
Leiko Kei Tratt,
Derwa, and
Karuo are such strong vibrant dancing tunes, they are bursting with power and energy.
Deva and
Tanit, on the other hand, are slightly slower songs with that familiar haunting tribal sound, reminiscent of
Fodder for the Raven, my favourite song of Cuélebre’s first record.
So is
Dijara an
Oinos part two? No, not at all. Cuélebre took some huge steps forward since then. First off there are those vocals. They are mostly recorded double and although Judith doesn’t use the exuberant vocal capacity of Rose Avalon, she does put in a lot more melody than Marta did. Not that one is better than the other, they just use different styles and I happen to like them all. A lot of the time Judith’s vocals remind me of
Faun,
especially on songs like
Keinoman,
Deva, and
Leiko Kei Tratt. And I have to say, it fits the music of Cuélebre perfectly.
Another thing that progressed a lot is the overall sound of the album. While staying true to the original feel of Cuélebre, Yhandros put a lot of effort into the end mix, making the album sound way richer, more dynamic, and far more powerful then
Oinos or even
Anaman. The best example is the song
Macha, starting out as a mid-tempo song reminiscent of
Fodder for the Raven, it quickly builds up to a full-on energetic dance tune, with the same powerful build up as
Cesair’s
Canzo. No mean feat.
Another example is
Derwa, a strong pagan folk song, acoustic, but with a drum/didge rhythm that would work perfectly as the basis of a ’90’s Eurodance song. Really? Yes really! And the best thing about it? It works! Victor has a didge style, quite similar to that of
Daphyd Sens,
which works perfectly in such a ‘modern’ interpretation of a tribal pagan folk beat.
Another example of the strong mixing skills on
Dijara is the ‘choir’, kicking in halfway through
Leiko Kei Tratt,
making this vibrant tribal dance tune sound even more impressive. because of that I consider
Leiko Kei Tratt, together with
Derwa, one of the strongest tracks on this impressive CD.
Adding everything up I can conclude that
Dijara is Cuélebre’s strongest album ’til now. Strong, powerful dynamic, and tribal. If I am looking for comparisons, then the sound of Cuélebre nowadays makes me sometimes think of
Omnia, especially their famous rhythm section: Daphyd Sens and Rob van Barschot. Sometimes small segments of the music remind of
Waldkauz
(just listen to the flute solo leading us into
Karuo for instance), in the first songs especially the vocals lead me towards the older material of Faun, and even
Brisinga’s
impressive vocalists pop up one time as a reference (Listen to the spoken vocals on
Macha, they are just as strong as Brisinga’s vocals on
Sinä Ja Minä), but these are all references. Add everything up and the sound is 100% recognizably Cuélebre. With
Dijara the Spanish band settles themselves firmly at the top of the pagan folk scene. Congratulations Cuélebre, you did all did a hell of a job on this one!
– Cliff
-editor: Sara Weeda
-picture’s:
1
Cliff de Booy taken at Castlefest 2016
2,3 courtesy of Cuélebre
Home 
About us
the title song on Dreamcatcher starts much more gently. A lovely alternative pop-folk song. Cool mouth harp, percussion with a smooth groove, and a beautiful bouzouki riff building up to a very impressive instrumental start of the song. Lovely orchestra arrangements take you into this nice and catchy pop-folk ballad. A song that again proves that Irdorath knows how to write a good song. They are all catchy, well arranged, and just dotted with all the interesting twists, breaks, and influences that make good music truly stunning.
As Bas is slightly faster in rhythm, and again an interesting alternative acoustic folk-pop/rock song. I know I keep coming up with these weird descriptions in all the Irdorath reviews, but that is actually a compliment towards the band. They have such a unique own style. And it all blends together so naturally. A pagan folk hurdy-gurdy together with a slidgeridoo and a slightly Spanish sounding guitar to start the song? Sure, no problem. A bit of melodic rap to continue with? Yes, why not. A bit of an Arabic feel combined with a slidgeridoo? In the Irdorath world, sure, and the result is catchy as hell.
Tam Nikto is the first of two beautiful ballads, showcasing Nadezhda’s powerful voice for the first time but also Anastacia on cello. I love how those two blend together. the warmth and power of Nadezhda’s voice and the warmth of the cello. Such clever songwriting, such clever arranging, I really love this band in so many ways by now. I love, for instance, how they pick up the speed halfway through Tam Nikto and make this song into a real grand musical adventure. This is songwriting at its very best. Forget about labels and names and styles. This is just 6:00 minutes of beautiful, well-composed music everybody – and I do mean everybody – should hear.
The same goes for Kryly, the second stunning ballad on Dreamcatcher. I’ve been in love with this song since the first time I heard it. Even without knowing what it is about (my Belarussian is a bit rusty) I could just feel how much this song means to Nadezhda. The intent is just pouring out of her with every single note she hits. With the lyrics it gets even better for me. Nadezhda writes most of the lyrics for Irdorath and these must have been one very close to her heart. A song that so deserves to be a true classic pop song.
But, there are more classic moments on Dreamcatcher. Take tracks six and seven, simply called Wedding Theme 1 and Wedding Theme 2. Well…, these were actually composed by Vladimir and Nadezhda for their own wedding! A wedding that took place……, ON STAGE!!!
I hope you don’t mind I won’t tell you any more about these two songs than that. Just watch the video below. The intimate moment at two/third if the song says soo much more than anything I could write. (I didn’t even know you could kiss while playing bagpipe 🙂 )
After all this romance and all these ballads its time to pick up the pace a bit and get our dancing shoes on again. Tochka Otscheta is just he song for that. A lovely groovy Slidgeridoo takes you into this
Omnia
-meets-Arabian-nights type of song that is both a dancing song AND a ballad. It is also the first time you clearly hear Vladimir use his Mongolian throat singing skills, adding yet another dimension to Irdorath’s diverse musical world.
And there is still more. Byu. Josť. Budu that suddenly takes you into the world of
Ball Noir.
Especially that hurdy-gurdy ‘riff’ could easily have been written by Lies Sommer or Marco van Asperen.
Nadezhda shines on vocals again here, but also Vladimir’s spoken vocals are something special. Just another highlight on a CD that already has so many. Again, the way they build up this song to its climax gives me goosebumps. Really, and not for the first time while listening to Irdorath’s music, I have to add.
Tango is a lovely way to end this CD. Another epic ballad, in English this time, building up to a lovely finale. What an A-M-A-ZING CD.
But I’m not finished yet. I have saved the best for the very, very last! I am not going to bother to write a full conclusion, because I think that conclusion is pretty obvious. Dreamcatcher is a stunning alternative pagan folk-rock CD that you just MUST have in your collection.
To finish it all off, I’m going to insert one final video in here. My favourite song on Dreamcatcher. My favourite song by Irdorath actually. Crank this up as loud as you dare and enjoy it! This is Irdorath! This is music everybody should hear! This is instant goosebumps on a disc! This is Dimna Juda! And I LOVE IT!!!!!
Cliff
Editor: Sara
picture and video’s: Irdorath
Guest vocals on Dimna Juda:
Alexandra Grachovskaja from the Belarusian Nu metal/punk/folk band
BY CRY
