Taiga Trans is a mesmerizing collection of compositions that offers an auditory illustration of cultural diffusion, creating a musical landscape that is neither here nor there.
The album, released this month by the Gothenburg-based Swedish electronic and psychedelic collective Fauna, comes from eight musicians who combine the contemporary conventions of dance music with traditional instruments and textures from cultures across the globe.
Fauna’s performances draw on the microtonal range of the bağlama, a long-necked fretted lute from Turkey, alongside the iconic, recognizable bounce of the jaw harp, a popular lamellophone originating from Asia, and the familiarity of electric guitars, effect-driven bass and dance rhythms deeply reminiscent of Latin cumbia. These pounding drums are supported by the group’s frequent use of a darbuka, a drum originating from Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.
In unison, these elements, combined with a deep emphasis on encouraging dance, have enabled this group of music makers to develop their own new-age sound.
The unique combination of textures and traditions is a product of the musicians’ own disparate heritages from France, Finland, Poland, Syria, Sweden and Turkey.
“It’s a melting pot and the music reflects that,” said Ibrahim Shabo, the group’s bassist, who formed Fauna through a series of informal jam sessions alongside guitarist Tommie Ek.
“A lot of things from our childhoods have leaked into our creativity,” Shabo said. “For example, my parents used to listen to a lot of stuff from the Middle East when I was growing up. A lot of that stuff comes up pretty naturally.”
The group’s diverse influences are reflected in its vocal performances, shared in a combination of Arabic, Swedish and French.
“It’s more like an organic collective than the usual bands,” Shabo said, a veteran of Sweden’s rock scene. “Finding a nice, safe, awesome group to hang out with, that’s the main thing. We try to tell a story when we do our live sets. We want to be an experience that you can just dive into, let go and drift away.”
The recording was released through Glitterbeat Records, a German label with a celebrated history of supporting artists who combine traditional music with experimental contemporary forms, and Fuana’s latest project is no different.
The eight compositions that comprise Taiga Trans stand as an introduction to the group’s musical aesthetic, bringing together a vast landscape of musical ingredients into a singular, unified vision focused on movement and cultural transcendence.
Following in the footsteps of their psychedelic-focused musical forebears, the group tends to a land fertile for meditation and tantric practice, or a hard workout at the gym.
Perhaps the two are the same.
Midway through the album, “Boreala ändlösheten” (Boreal Infinity) most vividly captures that approach, as singer Alexandra Shahbo’s voice and Fauna Buvat’s flute ascend toward a higher plane.
The listener is then brought crashing back down as the hyper dance-focused “Du ska få se” (You Will See) offers a relentless, pounding beat, as moments of the transient experience that preceded it return as musical motifs.
In the current cultural moment, as Khruangbin, BALTHVS and other similar psychedelic rock groups are seeing acceptance by the general public, Fauna is poised to carry listeners’ tastes even further into a new, untamed musical landscape.
Instead of music of the past, Fauna’s Taiga Trans offers a texture that is far from commonplace. Through its mix of unconventional and ancient instruments that celebrate the variety of creative expression humanity has to offer, alongside the latest technologies and advanced tools, the project stands as an indicator of what may come rather than what has been.
The album establishes a musical thesis for what the world could be — a magnificent combination of cultural identities that, in their collective unity and sui generis individuality, make lives more vibrant, open-minded and fulfilling.
