Origines

Tying in with the festival La Folle Journée’s 2024 theme of “Origins,” this absorbing album stretches across centuries and cultures, each song originally intended to accompany everyday activities, from prayer and work to ceremonies, private reflection, and entertainment. Collated and performed by the all-female vocal trio Les Itinérantes, Origines presents arresting and imaginative new arrangements of this often ancient music. We venture to Scotland, where wool was worked to rhythmic melodies, to North America and the chanting that accompanied entry into a sacred “sweat lodge.” We hear a Lithuanian lament on marriage and explore Debussy’s connections with Javanese music. And there’s new music, too, in many instances woven seamlessly into the old. Les Itinérantes combine a purity of tone with a vocal rawness that brings this music to scintillating life.