For Folk’s Sake review by Becky Varley-Winter
This debut from dreamy Minko is a departure from electronica (“I packed away my samplers and synthesisers and went to live by the sea in Cornwall and filled the room with acoustic instruments,” she tells us), and her arrangements show a subtle experimental bent reminiscent of Julia Holter, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Andrew Bird.
Minko is obsessed with “amalgamating sounds”, setting a clear, insouciant voice against cool, softly-layered backdrops of multiple instruments (she lists piano, guitar, ukelele, glockenspiel, flute, organ, the noise of grasshoppers…).
Sybil of Delphi is apparently the first installment in a chain of more than fifty songs. There’s depth and variety in the four on display here; the title track weaves doomily poetic lyrics against a gentle backdrop of lapping waves and whistling, while ‘Lemon Psyche’ is more sixties, all glamorous languor, sipping cocktails by the pool.
‘I Am The Bridge’, meanwhile, is the most carefree, meanderingly childlike, with a hum in the background that gives its naivety and nostalgia a crystallised, clear-eyed edge; the end of the song becomes haunting.
‘I Dive Again’ takes a bleaker turn, swells of piano mimicking Einaudi and the deep grey sea, which is a presence throughout the EP.
Minko Music 