Genius does what genius wants and although that word has been bandied about way too often, it’s apt here as wordless vocalist Beata Pater is engulfed in a Fire Dance (B&B Records) of her own creation. Well, actually composer Alex Danson had a little something to do with it as well since he wrote it all. Pater’s fifth CD has her producing her seven sidemen on Danson’s 11 originals but the arrangement of her vocals is key. Overdubbed on some tracks by as many as 16 layers of her own voice from bass to soprano, buoyed by a three-sax front line plus keys, bass, drums and percussion, it’s a soulful exotic world-beat festival moving and grooving from the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe folk strains to Moroccan “gnawa” music and the Ukraine’s “DakhaBrakha” sound. Pater’s voice serves as a woodwind section all its own. She can sound like an oboe or alto flute. Hey, she may not be singing words but this gal is wildly expressive all the same as she slides, slips, flies, flutters and grunts in a primal yet sophisticated language all her own.
Mike Greenblatt – Aquarian Weekly
