Jienat Mira (JNCD002)
I’m not competent enough to tell how relevant this record is in terms of music but I’m competent enough to make the claim that it’s marvelous sonically.
All music is composed and arranged by Andreas Jienat whose own instrument is the electric bass. He is currently working as an associate professor at the University of Tromsø Music Conservatory. He’s been touring with Mory Kante, Arto Tunçboyacyan, Angelique Kidjo and Mari Boine.
Music on “Mira” has two elements: singing, solo and group, and drumming. Lots of drumming. The variety of percussion instruments used is convincing.
Singing to my ears follows the traditional northern Scandinavian style (joik) but the booklet says it’s not traditional material. It’s newly composed music, and all compositions have a story of their own, often related to locations where the recording in question was made (Hammerfest, 150 metres from the Arctic Ocean; Northwestern Argentina; a church in a Finnish island; streets of Pelourinho, Salvador de Bahia).
I believe the disc can be enjoyed as such by anybody but predilection for this type of music and folk music in general, would help getting more out of it. For example, the lyrics are in 5 different tongues, of which kildin sami and inari sami are now only spoken by approx. 500 persons each. This may be the only commercial release on which kildin sami is used.
The sound
The sound is just magnificent. Similar recordings that mainly contain intensive drumming often excel in sheer dynamics. As distinct from those recordings, dynamics in this recording is very, very natural, with no signs of gimmickry, no desire to impress. The same applies to reproduction of quiet musical details, eg. subtle nuances associated with dynamics and color of the background drumming, all is presented in a very easy and natural way.
The box contains two discs with the same music: A hybrid SA-CD that will play in any CD player, and a Pure Audio Blu-ray disc – apparently the first world music record available on the Blu-Ray format. The record may also be the first world music production recorded in true 5.1 surround sound. To fully appreciate the spatial characteristics of this recording one would have to listen to its surround version. But even in the stereo mode the soundstage is incredibly engrossing, as it does not sound conventional at all. This probably has to do with the way in which the microphones were placed: performers around the microphone cluster (in a circle), effectively putting the listener in the middle. This creates a 3D space and a very stable sonic image.
Technical details as provided by Andreas Fliflet:
Basically all the sounds on the disc have been recorded by a 5-microphone array, giving all sound sources a physical 3D placement. (There are two tracks featuring electric bass that were not recorded in this fashion, as well as some overdubs done with just 2 or 3 microphones.)
Close-miking was only used for the LFE channel. If you hear a voice up close, the vocalist simply walked up to one of the microphones of the 5-mic array, which remained in the same place between overdubs, apart from when changing recording locations. There are lots of overdubs, but essentially with everything in true 5.1. Naturally, this resulted in some hefty track counts. Before submixing, I at times had the equivalent of 300 mono tracks chugging along at 96KHz/24bit.
In the mix, some artificial reverb and subtle limiting were applied. The mixes for the 2.0 versions are done from the source material, not simply converted down from the original 5.1 tracks.
Recording equipment: DPA 4006/4011/4021 microphones – Millennia HV-3D preamp – Apogee Rosetta 800 converter
SA-CD layer: 2.0 and 5.1, 96KHz/24bit
Blu-ray disc: 2.0 and 5.1, 96KHz/24bit