Something Secret

by Sarah Benton, 18 November 2007

Cries of Desolation

Carol Grimes and Giles Perring use an extraordinary range of sounds with voice and percussion to create the music of lives stripped of all ease, in a state of desolation - or given the words are by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, in a stateless desolation. There are ululations and the adhan (Muslim call to prayer) songs of love, to a child, to you, to the human race; whispers and sighs, cries and growls like crows and wolves, oriental twanging, perhaps a bagpipe, and cracks and murmurs from the primeval forest--and often Grimes' lovely voice lifting above the throbbing of the drums.. The whole is deeply sad, a sound portrait created by the most versatile musicians who haven't flinched from exploring music, or humanity from the `inside out and outside in.'