Record Collector 12-’04 • Ken Hunt

Izaline Calister, Krioyo
*****
A world music album of and for 2004

Some singers have striking voices. Others have voices that communicate authority. Others radiate an ‘other’ quality that some describe as sensuous. The sublime Curaçao-born vocalist lzaline Calister has a voice of raw silk, delivers a lightly worn authority and ecstasy in buckets.

In Britain the only opportunities to experience her in person have been fronting Dissidenten at Glastonbury. Live, she is something else. This piece of alternative Tropicana projects a degree of ‘otherness’ that few vocalists ever reach. Krioyo, her third solo album, captures her singing her lungs out with all her Netherlands Antilles roots showing. The album’s titie is local patois for 'Creole'. Krioyo, the album, is Curaçaoan roots transplanted on Dutch soil. On the tracks Ta Abo So (It's Only You) and Telenovela (Soap Opera) she uses wiri (metal scraper) for percussive colour in ways reminiscent of how Punjabi bhangra re-rooted in Southall soil used chimta (tongs for flipping chapatti). On Aworó (Soon) she delivers a vocal performance that comes close to the imploding pathos of Billie Holiday.