ITN's latest is something of a concept album, investigating the use of language in music and addressing the complex interaction of voice and instrumentation (actually, it goes much deeper than that, but this is a review, not a dissertation). For many artists, addressing such a topic would mean subjecting listeners to an hour of self-indulgent, borderline unlistenable scholar-wank; luckily, that's not how the Humberstone brothers work. Lingua offers more of the intricate, beautiful orchestral music ITN fans expect -- although rather than sounding like the soundtrack to an imaginary film, works like "I Ask For Grace" are more involving and original that most of what's happening in movie soundtracks today. Vocalists, including ITN fixture Dolores Marguerite C., provide phonemic performances of words and poems in a variety of languages, allowing comparison and contrast between Japanese, Slavic, native Mexican and various Romance languages. Some translations are thoughtfully provided in the CD booklet, though it's more interesting to listen to the disc once without looking at them, hearing voice as an instrument, the words as much glossolalia as the varying tones and timbres of an orchestra. Of all the tracks on Lingua, "Biello Dumlo" is perhaps the most intriguing -- its narrative is written and performed in Friulano, a lost language with roots in Italian and other European tongues, and the alternation of male and female speech suggests a formalized exchange (though without translation, the meaning is left to the listener's imagination). With its extra thematic dimension, Lingua should provide hours of listening pleasure to music lovers and self-styled music scholars alike.
In The Nursery Lingua ITNCorp CD
			Review by George Zahora

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