Mala Herba, “Wounded Healer”

Mala Herba
Wounded Healer
White Forest Inc.

Since Polish artist Zosia Hołubowska’s first demos as Mala Herba emerged seven years ago, the work under that aegis has never lacked for confidence or consideration. Its themes of folk wisdom and practice, not to mention fluidity between modern techno/body production, acoustic experimentation, and bracing vocals, have been there since day one, with the nature of individual releases has been determined by subtler choices in focus and refinement. New LP Wounded Healer is Hołubowska’s most varied release to date, but also gets as deep into Mala Herba’s arcane forest as has yet been ventured.

As with previous Mala Herba releases, newcomers and fans will both likely focus initially on Wounded Healer‘s vocals, and the increasingly fervent incantation of opening track “Siemieniec” indicates the level of drama much of it is pitched at. With each track featuring contributions from other femme Eastern European artists, there’s a range of registers and moods, with the vocals complemented by weighted kicks and and atmospheric pads and sampling. It’s tough to always know whether the vocals (predominantly in Polish but with some Ukrainian mixed in if I don’t miss my guess) are serving as wards, banishments, excoriations, laments, or some other form, but they’re almost always arresting even free of direct linguistic context (the album’s title alluding to the wisdom of Greek centaur Chiron leaves the tracks themselves open for a wide range of allusions and interpretations).

But in the corners of Wounded Healer are many moves made by Hołubowska and their collaborators which add depth and colour beyond its more bracing elements. The gradual chopping and sampling of the initially simple sing-song vocals of “Lipa” over the course of its run time could be taken as a drift into the uncanny abstraction of the human voice, or given the decidedly organic ethos which runs through the record, simply as a reflection of natural decay and the degradation of recordings and bodies. The rising and falling harmonic rondo of “Nikt” is similarly softer than much of the record, but the shape of the pulsing kick which runs through it finds a textural contrast in both the heavily processed and naturally recorded vocals which alight through it.

Wounded Healer is a stark listen which gets Mala Herba’s appeal and power across in as strong and direct a manner as we’ve heard, but also offers depth both through its collaborators and Hołubowska’s subtle but adroit flourishes. You don’t need to speak Mala Herba’s language to know that they trade in strong medicine.

Buy it.