Merema – Kezeren Koiht (CPL-Music, 2020)
Merema, one the rising talents of folk music in Russia, released Kezeren Koiht (Old Custom) in 2020. The musicians are working towards saving the dying languages of their homeland, the Republic of Mordovia, located between Moscow and the Volga.
“Kezeren Koiht” (Old Custom) presents numerous traditional folk tunes from Mordovia recreated with new arrangements by Merema. The songs celebrate life. The first track, “Our Beloved Guests”, is a good-humored folk song about the importance of hospitality. “Gorkina Anastasia” takes a darker turn, a young widow, thanks to divine help, manages to free herself from the clutches of an evil “sister”, who is actually a mass murderer and decorates her house with body parts of her victims.
The song “Alesha, Son Of An Old Lady” is the story of a handsome young man who has to come to terms with the fact that he probably has no other choice but to go on an adventure trip because the grey horses entrusted to him have become independent and moved away to faraway lands.
In “Yakova Daryushka”, there is a rebellious girl, who is obviously too enterprising and stays away from home for far too long.
Merema was founded in Saransk in 2010 and set increasingly ambitious goals in the following years. The band leader, Ekaterina Modina and her colleagues call Merema an “ethnographic folklore studio“. The band members finance their own projects without government support and carry out field studies in the Mordovian villages, with the goal of preserving local traditions. Merema won the Russian World Music Awards 2017.
The lineup includes Ekaterina Modina, Anna Shulugina, Olga Vasilieva, Gennady Dulkin, Dmitry Fadeikin, and Maria Kirzhaeva.
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Author: World Music Central News Room
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