There is no other string quartet quite like the Kronos. Often imitated, never equaled, the San Francisco-based foursome pursues its quest for new musical horizons with inextinguishable fire and infallible flair. Their latest effort brings new pieces or skillful arrangements of songs from all over the world, mostly from countries or regions that are cross-sections between different cultures and ways of life: Yugoslavia, Portugal, India, Mexico, Rumania, Hungary, California, Argentina, Iran, and Lebanon. This is crossover, yes, but with a difference: it never indulges in cheap mediocrity, but rather opens the listener’s ears to unexpected, exotic, fascinating sound worlds. Despite the change of cellist (Jennifer Culp has replaced Joan Jeanrenaud), the quartet plays with its usual vitality, homogeneity and characterful tone, with perhaps a hint more of velvet-like sheen in the sound. Alternating fast-driven pieces with moody atmospherics, Kronos conveys the strong nostalgia of the Portuguese fado (Carlos Paredes’ Canção Verdes Anos and Romance No. 1) or the Argentinean tango (Annibal Troilo’s Responso), as well as the feverish excitement of gypsy music (Pannonia Boundless by the Yugoslavian Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Turceasca performed together with the Rumanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks). There is also a spiritual side to this exploration. While the Sufi song Ecstasy by the Lebanese composer and nay virtuoso Ali Jihad Racy seems to plead for metaphysical communion with the world, both the old standard Gloomy Sunday–more moving than ever in the quasi-schubertian arrangement by Osvaldo Golijov–and Terry Riley’s rather noisy Cortejo Fúnebre en el Monte Diablo express a deep sentiment of loss: that of first violin David Harrington’s son, Adam. As a sort of final wink, as much as a summary of this musical journey, here comes the famous Misirlou Twist, made popular by the “King of Surf Guitar” Dick Dale, and subsequently by film director Quentin Tarantino in his movie Pulp Fiction (remember the explosive song during the opening title credits?). Composed by one Nicholas Roubanis in the 1930s, it mixes Middle-Eastern influences and klezmer-like melodic turns with an inescapable feeling of West Coast nonchalance and dolce vita. Once again, the Kronos Quartet’s got a hit with this perfectly produced and recorded CD.
