Becvou

Cyan blue vinyl. Becva is a river located in the Eastern part of Czech Republic. In September 2020, several chemical leaks into the river caused the poisoning and subsequent death of 40 tons of wildlife in the waterway – an unprecedented catastrophe. Growing up in Prerov, Becva was an ever-present part of Tomas Niesner’s youth and this environmental disaster affected him deeply. In an effort to understand the river better and inspired by Werner Herzog’s ‘Of Walking in Ice’, Niesner set out on a journey from the spring of Be?va to its confluence with river Morava, a journey of over 100km. It was a romantic quest in wholly unromantic circumstances, an attempt to expiate the irreversible
Becvou, the album, is a travelogue of sorts, an aural chronicle of this journey. Arranged and composed around field recordings from the river banks, it also features Tomas Niesner on guitar, zither and modular synthesizer, unlike many of his previous releases where he’d zero in on one instrument. Combining elements of fingerstyle guitar, musique concrete and drone, it’s an elemental tapestry of enveloping textures, shimmering guitar motifs and soaring synth sounds. At one moment reminiscent of the meandering improvisations of East of the Valley Blues, at others calling to mind the ecstatic minimalistic compositions of Caterina Barbieri and oscillating between moods like dread and hope throughout, Becvou is Tomas Niesner’s most complete statement to date, fascinating in both concept and execution