The Judith Wright Centre – Sun Apr 11

With the weather having felt like summer’s return all week, this balmy Sunday night marks my first-time Zulya & The Children Of Underground live experience. As the Judy’s lights dim, the award-winning chanteuse quietly leads her backing band – bassist Andrew Tanner, guitarist Lucas Michailidis, drummer Justin Marshall and the recently joined trumpeter/keyboardist Eamon McNelis – onstage and launches into a dreamy Tatar-language number. As the applause dies down, Zulya briefly tells us about the songs from her new album Tales Of Subliming and the lyrical influence of fairytale female characters before taking us to the fantasy world. Given a subtle jazz-folk treatment, the tributes to Russian and Tatar lore – namely The Subliming Of The Snow Maiden and The Water Woman And The Orphan Girl – are beautifully haunting, the latter's vocal hook surprisingly recalling Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier. Zulya’s crystalline voice is a revelation live, effortlessly reaching the soaring highs throughout, while McNelis’ trumpet break on He Fell So Deep is sheer connoisseur's delight. For the two-song Tatar sequence, Tanner emits the sounds of Zen from his jew's harp and on the Brothers Grimm-inspired The Ropemaker’s Daughter, Zulya gains wings and sends shivers through the room with the “like a bird you will soar” line. As we get back to Earth, A Tale Of Love And Death gains a widescreen quality and The Leap approximates what Pentangle could sound like if they went into the Russian woods.

Following a brief intermission, Zulya and the band restore the aural dreamworld with A Girl Named Free, the old witch’s monologue Baba Yaga’s Dream, Little Sky and the Arctic chill of Ocean Lullaby. A jaunty Tatar ditty prequels the established staples Love Hunter and Insomnia; the continually-subdued Michailidis breaking into a tasty, jazz-tinged solo on the latter. The undying cheers summon the musos for an encore comprising an energetic Tatar-ska workout and Zulya’s ethereal a capella soliloquy, the images of endless steppes rolling in our minds. The real Genghis blues? There you have it.

DENIS SEMCHENKO

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