Stavi (pronounced stahvy) is a solo album of Janis Žilde, leader of Satellites LV (known as simply The Satellites in their early „brit-pop†period). It continues the direction started with 2001’s „Kind of Glue†EP by Satellites LV, a diversified post-rock with jazz, ambient and pop elements. Both albums, perhaps, absorb all the best traditions cultivated on the flat post-rock field – they’re epical, mostly instrumental, played with attention to the nuances, sometimes (but not always) slow-building guitar-centric pieces, augmented with occasional radio recordings, xylophone, rhodes, trumpet and sporadical electronics. The ultimate merit is the music being quite varied – more diverse than any recording of Tortoise, Tarentel, Bark Psychosis, Mogwai etc (named also by band members as their influences) – while remaining integrated and conceptual whole. Not the last role in diversifying of the music is played by inclusion of jazz elements – a few celebrated Latvian jazz musicians are guest-featured on both albums. On Stavi (which is basically translated as Floors), more academic music elements are present, thanks to mezzo-soprano vocals, live cello and string group cameos. A flavor of experimental electronics is also added to one of the tracks... All these guest appearances, just like the main body of sound, are highly nuanced and incorporated with restraint, which deserves attention and respect against the widespread overplaying and endless improvisation. Stavi starts off with a main theme – a 18 minute epic, slowly unfolding, featuring beautiful and extra deeply sounding guitar lines, resembling Tarentel a bit, supported by rhodes, xylophone and gentle pulse of drums. The piece is crowned with that mezzo-soprano female vocal appearance. The next tracks flow in mostly different directions, starting with an energetic postrock/avantgarde jazz digression, followed by cello/laptop dialogue and then by various instrumental tracks, presenting postrock/improv/jazz/ambient element combinations in different proportions. All pieces can stand on their own, at the same time comprising a conceptual 40-minute suite, which can be a highly rewarded listening from start to finish. This sentence can also be applied to the „Kind of Glue†EP, which is shorter in duration and contains a few songs in addition to instrumental-only tracks. A sound recording deserves a separate word. The sound is so deep and tasteful, that listening gives simply a pure gourmet satisfaction... Big respect to a sound engineer. All in all, these two albums should hopefully stand out and be mentioned worldwide, even having so many bright and talented similar artists working in this field.
