Unsound releases Raphael Rogiński’s new album Žaltys. Listen now. Next Unsound artist announcement coming this Monday

Žaltys, the new album by Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński, featuring Lithuanian singer Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, is out now on vinyl, streaming and digital.

Named after a household spirit in Lithuanian folklore, the album in inspired by the traditional snake mythology of Lithuania, a country he has frequented often, as well as its border regions with Poland. 

Yet while Eastern European folk music is a constant, enigmatic inspiration here—the track titles derive from various Lithuanian plant names—Žaltys is (like all of Rogiński’s work) impossible to pin down, drawing on jazz, American primitivism, and a pervasive mysticism. Infused with a specific culture and place, the album contains a sense of memory, time passing, wonder, and loss. The music, Rogiński says, “is a return to the moment when my brother and I laid down in a boat near the Lithuanian border, floating on a lake at night and looking at the stars in the sky, which always seemed closer to us there.”

Working with Warsaw musician and producer Piotr Zabrodzki, Rogiński created what he describes as “guitar piano”. Rogiński and Zabrodzki made the whole studio resonate while recording, to achieve a sound “as if the wind was playing the strings”. Rogiński says, “We connected some low-voltage effects to powerful old amps and a Leslie speaker, and put unusual sets of strings on the guitars.” For the first time on a solo album, Rogiński employs overdubs to create layers on several tracks, while other compositions are pared back, variously stark, harsh or simply beautiful, exploring his deep relationship with the instrument.

Making a guest appearance —including on the first single “Šilinis Viržis”— is musician and singer Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, a member of Merope, a band which draws more directly on Lithuanian folk forms. The two artists have been friends for years, but until now had never managed to record together, even though they share similar inspirations (and recently performed live at Unsound and Ephemera). Now Jurgelevičiūtė sings and plays the kanklės—a Lithuanian plucked string instrument closely related to the zither—on two songs on the album, the latter of which has an almost levitational quality. Zabrodzki also plays piano on “Šilinis Viržis”.

Žaltys is The Guardian’s Folk Album Of The Month, calling it a “searching, soulful release conjuring up the spirit of summers spent by the lake and in the forest” and The Quietus’ Album of The Week, naming it a “Magic carpet ride”.

We hope you like it!