DeVotchKa
How It Ends

The first time I attended the screening of that delightful film "Little Miss Sunshine," at the first note of the soundtrack, I told myself: "I know this piece!" I knew I had already listened to that music, but taken in snippets like that, I couldn't contextualize it; I enjoyed the film and waited for the end of the screening to discover which artists were used for the music. My patience was rewarded when I nodded in satisfaction at reading the name DeVotchKa, a quartet from Denver active for more than half a decade.

The album from which practically the entire soundtrack is sourced is titled "How It Ends" and was released in 2004. And it's not a coincidence that I mentioned a film, given that the cinematic tension of this music is truly overwhelming, and I believe it was a precise intention of the musicians to choose this path (especially when comparing this work with the previous ones). Suspended between American folk, mariachi, Balkan music, and orchestral hints, it is a joy for the ears, where even more than for the beauty of the tracks themselves, you will be fascinated by the intense suggestions they manage to give. Packaged with monolithic compactness, the album flows together, much like a film, only you are the directors. Don't miss the ballad that gives the album its title ("How It Ends"), of crystalline beauty, with its phrase (first hinted at with the piano and then carried away by the strings) that in a flash, pulls you from your thoughts and takes you to another dimension, for seven-minutes-seven of emotion. Equally remarkable is the stunning mariachi-Balkan pastiche "We’re leaving," which lifts you from your chair and throws you into gypsy dances around a fire, while the wine flows freely and the air becomes electric.

The connection with cinema is so strong that they even indulge by quoting Yann Tiersen with a piece aptly titled "Charlotte Mittnacht (The Fabulous Destiny Of...)" which is perfect, in mood, style, intention, for the soundtrack of the unforgettable "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain." I cannot fail to mention other truly beautiful tracks like the twilight ballad "You Love Me" or the captivating "The Enemy Guns," placed at the opening of the album.

At the end of the listening, the only flaw that can be attributed is an excess at times in that querulous Balkan melancholy that for those not quite immersed in certain musical situations is a bit hard to swallow, but in a 14-track album, there’s so much on the table (especially in the first 8 tracks) that it doesn't take much to set things right.