VIRGINIJA PIEVOS “Tolumėla” CD digipak

Label: Dangus – DNG067
Format: CD, Digipak, Album
Country: Lituania
Released: 2020
Genre: Folk
Style: Folk, Postfolk, Acoustic, Folk Rock

Virginija Pievos is a widely recognized singer and musician on the Lithuanian scene, who has been performing poetic music for over 20 years and is highly esteemed for her exceptional, rich voice. After her folk-rock band Pievos gave its final performance in 2016, Virginija continued her creative journey as a multi-instrumentalist. She returns with a new solo project—a post-folk sound built on looping and droning principles, where dark melodies intertwine with shamanic rhythms.

Tolumėla is a dialectal word from North-Eastern Lithuania meaning distance or the far away. The album presents 10 compositions based on archaic folk songs, with all music and arrangements composed by Virginija herself; for the song Gegiūla, she also penned her own folk-inspired lyrics. Highly intuitive, devoted, and melancholic, the album draws the listener into a soundscape of raw drones and acoustic rock, offering a surprising and alternative approach to Baltic native music.

Many of Virginija’s pieces were born from simple experimentation with looping effects and vocal processors, layering various instruments and emerging melodies. This enchanting creative process unfolded naturally and fluently. Later, sketches captured on a voice recorder were refined in a home studio with the dedicated assistance of the renowned Lithuanian musician Donatas Bielkauskas.

As the album’s leading tracks, Oi toli toli and Saulala raudona, have garnered significant attention from both listeners and the music media, this release is undoubtedly set to be one of the most important discoveries in Baltic post-folk of 2020.