Uplifting music with a deeply sad theme

The Zurich quintet Black Sea Dahu, led by sisters Janine and Vera Cathrein, have come a long way since their debut album was released in 2018 White Creatures and the wondrous catchy tune it contains In Case I Fall For You. Their success has meant that hardly any other band from our latitudes has performed live throughout Europe more often than they have in recent years. And this has naturally had an effect on our mutual musical understanding. Long story short: a subtlety so powerful and intimate, so complex and playful can only be achieved by a band whose members are able to respond to each other with telepathic sensitivity.

Her fourth album Everything (including the live album) doesn't immediately jump out at you like the cult hit from back then. The magic of these chansons is not based on «instant», rather it draws its power from delicately knitted vocal melodies that blow in the wind like the bows of a kite; from instrumental arrangements that are bursting with subtle surprises - enhanced, incidentally, by the warm sounds of the string quartet Amours Sur Mars, with whom they have also given concerts.

And then, of course, from the voice of Janine Cathrein and her songs, which, inspired and made necessary by the death of her father, revolve around the cyclical waves of life. «I didn't make an album,» she says, «I built a place to endure this grief.» A wonderful album that combines folk-pop conventions with chamber music moods and, like the most beautiful blues, brings uplifting music to deeply sad themes.

Black Sea Dahu: Everything. Mouthwatering Records