Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Those Sung Stories are more than just an aide memoire, they are more than the sadness highlighted by the verbal communication of the memento mori, the spirit of another time influencing the heartbeat as it soars, as it falls, sung stories are the framework of society, of how we have come together in terms of community, they tell of battles waged and won, they tell of storms survived, they inform us of how we can be proud and free in the face of aggression, in the face of despots and dictators.

Gesungene Geschichten, strong words but one that tells of the truth of its translation, Sung Stories, and one to which German folk favourite Gabria, also known as Christine ‘Tini’ Rauscher, humbly, but with earnest respect for the narrative at hand, takes out of the community’s hidden safe, and reveals its treasures to all in a symbolic gesture of faith, faith in the conscious that has safeguarded these mementos, the memories of the group.

Gabria takes on the duality of language with great ease, switching back and forth between her own native tongue and that of English, a morphing if the two across the impressive list of tracks that is aided by the dramatic, sensual, vivid music that reaches out spectacularly, like a ghostly hand seen in the dense mist of a forgotten wood, but one that comes with reassurance rather than the apparition of foreboding.

Across tracks such as the opener The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Lament To The Seven, Wo Ich Lebe, Wo Ich Sterbe, the superb The Irish Lassie, Red Is The Rose, Ruf der Nixe, and Der Wilde Reiter, Gabria hones in on the years of her own voice’s ability to capture insight and thrill the ear and the soul, and produces a set of songs that are the epitome of Sung Stories, that are the exquisite sense of relief as the darkness rolls in that a voice can be heard gifting security and timeless refuge to serenity.

An album of tremendous and deeply felt natural beauty, a set of songs that sing in unison and designed to soothe, as well as inspire; Gesungene Geschichten is an album of verbal and musical sanctuary.

Ian D. Hall