Desire lines
Camera Obscura
Keywords
Reviews (3)
AllMusic
2013
By
By
Thom Jurek
2013
"[Bittová] plays violin (bows, strums, plucks, and gently hammers its strings), kalimba, and sings. The music consists of 12 "fragments," all but one composed by Bittová. While she has always used the folk music of her Moravian culture (stringed instruments) rather than that of Czech culture (brass and percussion), she uses it as a single referential element in an expansive musical world view that includes classical music, avant-garde, and improvisational elements. But she proves too mercurial to be boxed in by any of them ... While there is no doubting the sophisticated musicality in the wonderfully strange and accessibly charming sparseness of this album, ultimately, her "Fragments I-XII" are just as close to the mercurial root of unbridled poetry itself. As such, "Iva Bittová" is the stuff of enigma".
All about jazz
d. 19. Mar. 2013
By
By
John Kelman
d. 19. Mar. 2013
"Her first [ECM] appearance, as featured vocalist, on Vladimír Godár's decidedly classical Mater (2008), represented but one of her many talents. Bittovà is also a fine violinist, but on her simply titled leader debut, Iva Bittovà, she demonstrates not just her capable skills as a singer and violinist; on some of the (...) tracks she also adds kalimba to the mix. A recital of stark but warm yet haunting clarity, it's impossible to categorize ... It's an overall eccentric yet thoroughly compelling performance that possesses its own dramaturgy, even as it dispels myths of convention. Iva Bittovà is a curious and quirky debut, but one which reaps the continued rewards of repeat plays".
fRoots
2013 June
By
By
Ken Hunt
2013 June
"The Czech vocalist-violinist Iva Bittová operates across musical territory more sound-rich and diverse than any other solo or ensemble musician likely to cross your path ... [These] solo tracks, largely improvised in the studio (...), field her voice, violin and kalimba (thumb piano) in varying permutations. I and XII are wordless vocal improvisations against kalimba patterns that are, thanks in part to [Manfred] Eicher's echo-tinged production, tonally reminiscent of water dripping off stalactites in a cave. The solo vocal piece VI has a distant ring of hymnody ... III is a Gertrude Stein setting; VII a setting of an unpublished poem by Chris Cutler (of Henry Cow, the Art Bears and suchlike); and VI a vocal setting of a composition by Joaquin Rodrigo ... This is the release that (...) best captures the immediacy of her contemporary repertoire, or better put, one sliver of it".