Garden Window Escape
Ramble, 2025
8/10
Listen to Garden Window Escape
The Israel outfit Staraya Derevnya treat us to 7 new tracks of their unclassifiable sounds, where Gosha Hniu leads the band through much creativity and expressive songwriting.
The breathy singing and experimental nods of “Tight Lipped Thief” starts the record with Andrea Serafino’s frisky drums and plenty of found object sounds, and “What I Keep In My Closet” follows with Miguel Pérez’s warm guitar amid ambient noises and a mesmerizing climate of intrigue.
In the middle, “Half-Deceased Uncle” comes with some sci-fi gestures and a building presence of busy percussive ideas, while “Cork Flight Operation” offers a blurry and creative album highlight that benefits from Ran Nahmias santur.
“Onwards, Through The Garden” and “Myshhh” exit the listen. The former is quite hushed initially, before blending Yoni Silver’s bass clarinet and aberrant synth, and the latter is extremely bare, intimate even, in its soothing demeanor.
A truly atypical experience, the unpredictable use of flute, drum machine, oud, cello, kazoo wheel lyre and voices ensures a curious and enlightening listen.
Travels well with: Staraya Derevnya- Boulder Blues; Kee Avil- Crease