Santaka

“Santaka” means “confluence” in Lithuanian, and it could not be a more appropriate name for Marijus Aleksa and Manfredas Bajelis’s joint musical project. To start with, you can hear a sense of confluence, right there in the fabric of the sound, more and more with every release: historical depth, modernist inspiration and quirky personal character swirl together into a beautiful river of rhythm and oddity. Not only does Santaka involves a comping together of a wide variety of talents in the experimental music community of Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, but it represents multiple streams in the country’s musical and cultural history across decades – perhaps even centuries – flowing together into a coherent whole. And further, still, it is the sound of two men who have travelled the world and participated